Edward Bawa Tell Gov’t Remove Special Petroleum Tax As It’s No More Relevant

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Bongo legislator and an individual from the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament, Mr. Edward Bawa has asked the public authority to promptly eliminate the Special Petroleum charge.

He disclosed to Dzifa Bampoh on the First Take on 3FM Thursday, May 6 that the expense which was presented by the Mahama organization isn’t more important because the conditions that hastened its creation do not anymore exist.

Mr. Bawa who was an expert at the Energy Ministry under the Mahama organization further clarified that at the hour of the presentation of the duty, oil costs on the worldwide market were dropping, a circumstance that influenced the homegrown costs also.

To compensate for the income deficiency, he said, the then government had no alternative except to carry that specific expense to produce income.

However, he said, right now oil costs have ricocheted back to regularity henceforth, no compelling reason to keep burdening individuals with the Special Petroleum Tax.

“On the off chance that you take simply the expenses and demands that are forced by the state and in this manner, they go to the state. The aggregate sum is 243m. On the off chance that you take a gander at Energy Debt Recovery, you take a gander at the street asset and you take a gander at energy recuperation demand they all go to the state.

“On the off chance that you take a gander at what we called the SP, that is the Special Petroleum Tax, it is pretty much as high as 46. Allow me to disclose to you the historical backdrop of this and why it shouldn’t be there.

“The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers Ghana (COPEC) has been discussing evacuation of that. This was an assessment that was presented in 2015. You will review that in 2015 we had the breakdown of oil costs in the global market. It descended up to around 25 dollars for every barrel.

“Inside that specific period, Ghana had effectively placed benchmark regarding our spending that it would have been someplace 50 dollars, so to have gotten it to 25 dollars implied that planned to have an income setback. So the Seth Terkper-drove Ministry of Finance carried this specific assessment to parliament in the way that it was simply expected to serve for a very long time, plug the income hole that was being made because of the breakdown of the oil costs.

“Today presently when this administration they chose to expand its residency. It should be 17.5 percent yet they moved it from that and kept it a fixed measure of 46%.

“The inquiry is the reason for which this duty was presented in the value develop was a result of the breakdown of the oil cost on the worldwide market.

“Today, oil costs are over 50 dollars for each barrel so what is the defense for as yet having the Special Petroleum Tax?”