Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has applauded the government's efforts to digitally transform Ghana.
The Minister, on Thursday, November 4, 2021, in an interview on Peace FM's morning show ''Kokrokoo'' outlined some major digital interventions and strides made by the Akufo-Addo government.
He touched on the tax system where, according to him, before the digitization era under the Akufo-Addo administration, only 4 percent of Ghanaians were paying tax.
As the country primarily depends on taxes in distributing the nation cake, four percent of Ghanaian taxpayers is disturbing as it attributed to the underdevelopment of Ghana.
Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah expressed excitement that the digitalization programmes introduced by the government has helped to correct the system.
''Four (4) percent of Ghanaians were on the tax database...Today, by the help of Dr. Bawumia and the Government of Ghana, because we have advanced our national ID, digital property address system, interoperability and currently started to merge our databases, we have moved from 4% to 86%," he said.
He disclosed that the 86 percent represented 15.5 million Ghanaians on the tax database.
He urged Ghanaians to embrace the digital initiatives by the Akufo-Addo government stating, ''the poverty gap has always been a technology gap''.
Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. |
Kojo, over 15 million can be on the tax database but what are you doing to ensure they file and pay the taxes? In the USA, every income/payments (including employee wages) are reported to the IRS and matched with individuals social security numbers or employer identification numbers (for contractors etc) so if people don't file their tax returns, the IRS have their income information and will file the tax return on their behalf, and send them bills. This is one way of reducing corruption.
so far as the government cannot fix the economy by making housing & food cheap and available - thereby reducing the cost of living in Ghana and increasing the disposable incomes of the average Ghanaian. The digitization will be meaningless. You have merely gotten a list of unemployed and broke people. You cannot squeeze blood out of a stone.
If you have a list of names of people but the people are unemployed, how can you get any tax?
Honourable Minister, There's no doubt this digitalisation agenda is a very good one and must be pursued to the end for all its benefit to be reaped. Well done to VP Bawumia and his team for what they are doing. Please whilst doing this digitalisation , we should not also forget to pursue sanitation passionately like we doing with the digital. A clean and green environment will enable us to cash in on our tourism potential and as well promote healthy living in our society . After all the saying goes that health is wealth. Lets us cast our attention on sanitation passionately. All the beautiful countries we visit for holidays, be it Dubai , Germany, Singapore and the rest have a very clean environment that attracts us to go spend our hard earned dollars in . Why don't we do same for our beloved Ghana. The people who have beautified their cities and countries are also human beings like us . Leadership in all walks of life should take lead in this area as an example for others to follow.