President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo has been lauded by dealers of spare part at Ghana’s spare part dealer’s hub, Abossey Kai in Accra for eliminating import duty imposed on spare parts importation.
According to the dealers, the tax cut will reduce prices of spare parts hence boosting sales and profit margin.
‘What the President did yesterday through the Finance Minister made we spare dealers here Abossey Kai happy. The import levy on spare parts made prices go high and our customers complained a lot. Sales went down as well, but with the scraping off of the import levy, the prices have started going down and we expects sales to boost. Nana is a show boy’ one dealer noted.
The spare parts import duty was introduced by the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration but Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, made the announcement of abolishing the tax yesterday in Parliament while presenting the budget for 2017 year ending.
According to Mr. Ofori-Atta, although the spare parts import duty and other taxes such as the 1% Special Import Levy, Kayayei market tolls, 17.5% VAT/NHIL on financial services, among others, were introduced to raise revenue, they have proven to be unprofitable means of raising money, which has rather become a burden to the business community.
The Finance Minister added that “some have proven to be nuisance taxes. They have no revenue yielding potential, and at the same time impose a significant burden on the private sector and on the average Ghanaian citizen. As part of our commitment to re-energize the private sector, the government has decided, as pledged, to review these taxes to provide relief for business. ”
