David Ofosu-Dorte
CHAIRMAN OF AB & David Africa, David Ofosu-Dorte, has recommended that Parliament should cap taxes that the government can oblige citizens to pay.
According to him, placing upper limits beyond which the government could not further tax citizens would curb the excessive expenditure of the government which citizens have to pay for, through taxes.
Mr. Ofosu-Dorte made the call while delivering the second Constitution Day Public Lecture organised by the UPSA Law School in collaboration with One Ghana Movement, a non-profit thought leadership and social action organization.
“The 1992 Constitution – A fundamental law for our prosperity or a well crafted guide for our economic doom,” was the theme for the lecture which brought together lawyers, academia, the media and the public.
The business lawyer with special focus on African transactions and projects, expressed concern over the array of taxes in the country indicating that it sounded as if Ghanaians had no right to earn net or disposable income.
He pointed out that individuals and corporate entities could not be said to be prospering if all the money they made was ‘taxed’ away from them.
He was emphatic that none of the taxes have really achieved their purposes for which they were introduced.
“We collect the money, it does not achieve its purpose and we add more particularly, Road Fund and Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) Debt Recovery Levy,” he stressed.
Further justifying why government’s ability to borrow should be capped, Mr. Ofosu-Dorte said the government’s expenditure was largely made with money borrowed externally or locally and ended up being passed to citizens.
“If we don’t pass legislative framework on government’s ability to borrow, this problem will not be solved,” he added indicating that a Private Members Bill can be initiated to pass the proposed legislations.
His said his reason was based on the fact that “We live in a society whose culture worships authority and is quite permissive in its attitude.”
He argued that culture could not be divorced from the constitution saying though the Constitution was the supreme law of the land, culture trounced the Constitution.
Mr. Ofosu-Dorte further noted that the culture of the people who used the Constitution was that they would find any way to abuse the Constitution.
“There is no law in the world which is so good to prevent evil-minded people from what is wrong and there is no law so bad which will prevent a good person from doing that which is right,” he emphasised.
BY Jamila Akweley Okertchiri