'He was taken out of context' - Miracles Aboagye explains Bawumia's 'I was joking' clarification

New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer, Mahamudu Bawumia was taken out of context over comments he made last week about not taxing but rather incentivizing churches and other faith-based organizations.

This is according to the spokesperson for the Bawumia for President campaign, Dennis Miracles Aboagye.

He refuted claims that Bawumia had said he would pay churches if elected president after the December 7, 2024, presidential elections.

His clarification came hours after Bawumia admitted that his comments were in jest and that it had been misinterpreted.

“He was taken out of context and if you recall, his policy position was purely on whether churches should pay taxes or not and then that conversation was lost out with misleading headlines like ‘Dr Bawumia says he will pay churches’. So he needed to provide that clarity.

“He never said he was going to pay churches … What he was saying is to highlight the churches’ contribution to our development and he indicated that if anything at all, it shouldn’t be taxes of churches that we should be discussing.”

“We should rather be thinking of how we are going to pay them for all their services and investments to the nation. But he never said categorically that he was going to pay churches,” Aboagye said in an interview on Asaase Radio on May 14.

'I was joking' - Bawumia clarifies 'we should pay churches ' comment

At a campaign event in the North East Region (May 13), Bawumia emphasised that he wanted to create a golden age of relationship between government and faith-based organizations.

"The church is the foremost development partner of government," he said stressing that if their support disappears, "Ghana will collapse because there will be chaos.

"At that point, I was joking and I said people are talking about taxing churches, I don't believe that and we would not tax churches, because if you look at the work the churches have done, then I was joking, that maybe we should have actually paid them for the work they did not really try to tax them.

"But I wasn't really saying we should pay churches, I'm saying that we should give incentives to churches to do more..."

What Bawumia said initially:

Speaking during a meeting with the clergy in the Bono Region, the NPP leader said: “The question is are we going to tax churches? My view on this is simple.

"In fact, that is why I say that if you assess the work the church has done, we should rather be paying them rather than they paying us.

"Unless you don’t understand the work the church has done. If you look at the way they try to keep the society together, the universities, the hospitals, the schools, it is just massive. Many churches have hundreds of schools, massive.

“So I don’t see, and I will not have a situation where we are taxing churches. We rather want to give churches incentives to support what the government is doing.

"I want us to be partners in the way the development partners are with us. You are our domestic development partners and we will give you incentives to do more,” he stressed.

NPP Flagbearer, Dr Bawumia clarifies recent statement about churches being paid, says he was joking... #GHOneNews #GHOneTV #Election2024 #ElectionHub#NPP pic.twitter.com/C7CUiAizqN

— GHOne TV (@ghonetv) May 13, 2024