Independent candidate helps in tax mobilisation

Sunyani (B/A), Jan. 24, GNA - Mr Kwaku Anane-Gyinde, an Independent Candidate in the last December Parliamentary Elections in the Kintampo North Constituency of Brong-Ahafo has formed an association to help to educate the people to pay their taxes.

He told Newsmen in Sunyani at the weekend that continued education would enable the District Assembly to achieve its budgetary targets to be able to provide more development projects.

Mr Anane-Gyinde said the association had registered 200 members, emphasizing that the need to form the association arose from the apathy among Ghanaians towards the payment of taxes.

The association would also ensure that people entrusted with such taxes collected utilized them judiciously to encourage taxpayers, he said.

Asked what he felt about the 2004 elections as a loser, Mr Anane-Gyinde said he had not regretted the least contesting the election.

"The fact that I placed third after the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidates, currently the undisputable two giant political parties in the country was enough consolation to me and those who voted for me", he said.

Mr Anane-Gyinde said: "Indeed it was a fruitful political exposure being my first open attempt to cross to that political height. I beat the candidates of the People's National Convention (PNC) and the Convention People's Party (CPP)."

He congratulated President John Agyekum Kufuor on his re-election and appealed to the Government not to forget about Kintampo North when sharing the national cake.

Mr Anane-Gyinde, a Journalist by profession and one-time President of the Students Representative Council of Ghana Institute of Journalism, disagreed with the NPP's all-inclusion policy in political appointments. He stressed that the abysmal performance of some of the Regional Ministers and District Chief Executives should tell President Kufuor that his good intention was defeated and, therefore, needed not be repeated in the "Chapter Two".

He also criticized appointments made merely on party affiliation and ethnic lines instead of on competence.

Academic qualifications alone had not scored any appreciable marks for most of our political appointees, Mr Anane-Gyinde said.