Kwaku Agyemang-Manu
Parliament has approved the request for waiver of income taxes amounting to GH¢174,696,712.50 on personal emoluments of health workers and on additional allowances paid to all frontline health personnel for the months of July 2020, August 2020 and September 2020.
The request was presented to the House on Tuesday, August 11, 2020 by the Deputy Minister of Finance, Abena Osei-Asare, on behalf of the Minister of Finance, which was referred to the Finance Committee for consideration and report in pursuant to Order 169 of the Standing Orders of the House.
Background
As part of measures to support frontline personnel involved in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic, government decided that all health workers would not pay taxes on their emoluments for a three-month period, commencing April 2020.
All frontline health workers would also receive an additional allowance of 50 per cent of their basic salary per month tax-free for the period – March to June, 2020 – and government has decided to extend these incentives granted to health workers to cover the months of July, August and September 2020 to support health workers in the continued fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Chairman of the Finance Committee, Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah, said the waiver is on personal emoluments of GH¢168,982,925.28 and additional allowances GH¢5,713,787.22.
Expected Benefits
According to him, the Finance Committee observed that the tax incentive is designed as a token compensation to encourage healthcare workers, especially frontline health personnel, to continue to make sacrifices in caring for those infected with the virus, and in caring for the sick in general during these difficult times.
He indicated that the committee was informed that the requested tax incentives cover health workers in government health facilities, quasi-government health facilities and private health facilities.
Frontline Health Personnel
As to who constituted “Frontline Health Personnel”, the committee was informed that there had been a challenge in defining who a “frontline” health worker is but in collaboration with relevant agencies, a working definition of “Frontline Health Personnel” has been accepted.
“These personnel were said to include those working in the most critical and risky areas in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic,” he disclosed.
He said the number of health workers who fell into the “frontline” category for the months of April, May, and June 2020 were 6091, 7418, and 7196 respectively, with the corresponding expenditure on the additional allowances being GH¢6.5 million, GH¢7.5 million and GH¢7.6 million for the months of April, May and June 2020 respectively.
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House