EITI helps to increase corporate tax to 35%

Based on the recommendations of the Ghana Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), Government increased the corporate income tax on oil and other minerals from 25 per cent to 35 per cent.

The payment of royalties which used to be between three to five per cent was fixed permanently at five per cent and staggering capital recovery allowance was also spread over five years.

This was disclosed by Mrs Philomena Johnson of Publish What You Pay, a civil society organisation (CSOs) with focus on the extractive industry, at this year’s Ghana Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) dissemination workshop for the 2012/2013 report in Koforidua.

She was speaking on the impact of the GHEITI at the workshop which was organised by the Ministry of Finance and the GHEITI secretariat to inform the public about revenue from the extractive industry and how they were utilized.

It was attended by district and municipal chief executives, district and municipal coordinating directors and their finance officers and some CSOs.

The Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Antwi-Boasiako Sekyere called for determine efforts to streamline the activities of the small scale miners to ensure that , they pay royalties, reclaim the land that they use and get registered to pay their due taxes to the state.

He observed that, if properly handled, the small scale miners have a potential to contribute substantially to the economy in terms of revenue and employment.

The Regional Minister commended Newmont Akyem Project for the contribution to the national economy in terms of employment to Ghanaians and the development of the Birim North District.

The special adviser to the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Ben Aryee observed that , the GHEITI has contributed a lot in improvement of government policy on the extractive sector and also created the platform for an inclusiveness of all players in the mining sector to get round the table to contribute towards the management of the mining sector.

He urged companies in the mining sector to be open, fair, transparent and uphold good global practices.

Mr Franklin Ashiadey, National Coordinator of GHEITI observed that, in countries where the management of the revenue from oil and gas had not been transparent and open, it had become a curse instead of supporting the development of those nations.

He said, since 2003, Ghana has used the EITI to understand better the challenges of the extractive industry and had helped government to undertake far reaching policy reforms to the benefit of the industry.

Mr Ashiadey observed that, the recent discovery of oil and gas had raised the expectation of the citizens to demand fast transformation in their standard of living and expressed the hope that the report of the EITI would help manage the prospects.