Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the flagbearer and leader of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has explained that his view point on churches being paid was said out of joke.
According to Dr. Bawumia, he joked when he stated that his administration plans to give incentives to churches to undertake more developmental projects, rather than imposing taxes on them.
Dr. Bawumia, while in an engagement with the clergy in the North-East region, stated that his statement was misconstrued.
Explaining to the clergy, the Vice president acknowledged that tremendous projects have been undertaken by the church in developing the country, thus, suggesting that, instead of imposing taxes on the church, the government should rather set up an initiative where the churches are given incentives in order to undertake many more developmental projects.
“Look at the number of hospitals the churches have built. Look at the number of universities the churches have built and the faith-based organizations have built. Look at the number of people the churches and faith-based organizations take care of on a daily basis. Can you imagine, just take a thought for a moment that you wake up tomorrow and all the schools, universities and hospitals the churches have built disappear. They just disappear. How would Ghana be like? Ghana will collapse. Isn’t it? We will not survive in this sort of situation because there will be chaos.
“So at that point I was joking and I said, oh…people are talking about taxing churches. I don’t believe, and we will not tax churches. Because if you look at the work the churches have done, then I was joking then, maybe we should have actually paid them for what they did, not really trying to tax them. But I wasn’t really saying we should pay churches, no. I am saying that we should give incentives to churches to do more.”
It is recalled that, the Vice President, during a visit to the Bono East region on May 10, mentioned that, “Unless you don’t understand the work the church has done. If you are looking at the buildings, the way they keep the society together, the universities, the hospitals, the schools, it is massive. It is just massive. Many churches have hundreds of schools. So I don’t see and I will not have a situation where we are taxing churches."
“We will rather want to give churches incentives to support what the government is doing. I want us to be partners in the way that the development partners are with us. You are our domestic development partners and we will give you incentives to do more.”
Source: Kobina Darlington/peacefmonline.com
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