Chairman of the trade committee in parliament, Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah, is troubled by the delay in the approval of tax exemptions for businesses under the One District-One Factory (1D1F) plan by parliament.

He bemoaned the fact that the scenario has forced some investors to leave the nation, calling it a "worrying and killing" situation for the economy.

Following the presentation of the business statement for the upcoming week, Carlos Ahenkorah made these remarks on the floor of the legislature.

“This House has deferred exemptions for One District-One Factory since 2021, which are still outstanding. We are going on another long recess, and there doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel for these 1D1F companies. It is very interesting to note that because of such delays and hindrances, some industries are moving away from Ghana.

“It is becoming a bit worrying, if not too worrying – especially on the part of the trade committee which is bombarded by these complaints from 1D1F companies almost on a daily basis.”

The legislator's anger was caused by the fact that the waivers were not taken into consideration by parliament before to the upcoming weeklong break. Currently, there are about 150 outstanding tax exemptions for businesses that were presented to the House and then sent to the committee for review to make sure that exemptions are granted on the basis of merit.

Kwaku Agyemang Kwarteng, the chairman of the trade committee and the MP for ObuasiWest, stated that two years is an excessive amount of time to hold businesses and investors waiting to start projects before receiving waivers.

He bemoaned the expenses these businesses would have to pay for demurrage and freight at the ports.

“The finance committee has had that referral since 2021. Up till now, up till now nothing is happening. It is very funny for anybody to import containers into this country and let it sit in the ports for two years, paying demurrage and port freight.

“Are you telling me that any investor in this country who has borrowed money from the bank should sit down for two years before they get the exemption to clear their goods from the ports? What are you doing to industry? You are killing industry,” he said.

He added: “Government only has exclusive rights over the duties there on the cargo, but not the rent of containers on the real estate space that they occupy – the container proper which belongs to the shipping line that is supposed to use it to move cargo back and forth,” he said, urging the House to as a matter of urgency include the matter in the week’s agenda to be considered before the House rises.

Contributing to the matter, Minority leader Cassiel Ato Forson noted it is not true that the finance committee has deliberately declined to consider the matter.

“It is wrong for you to think that the finance committee has failed to sit on the referral. We sat on it and we brought it to this House. This House rejected those referrals and asked the finance committee of which I am a member to re-look and do further research into the matter, and that is why we have not been able to present the report yet.

“We are talking about 150 tax exemptions for companies amounting to billions of cedis,” the Minority leader stated.

Adaklu MP Kwame Governs Agbodza hinted that the committee is purposefully preventing the passage of tax waivers in support of the claim.

He contends that tax exemptions should not be awarded merely on the basis of popular desire, but rather on the basis of merit.

“Let me remind you that we have granted tax waivers to many companies which are actually not doing anything; so encouraging us to give tax waivers just because the people have demanded them is not right,” he further stated.

Tax exemptions cost the economy GH27 billion between 2008 and 2020, which prompted lawmakers to approve the Tax Exemptions bill in July.

According to Minister of Finance Ken OforiAtta, it establishes a tax exemption framework with clear eligibility requirements for exemptions and is predicted to save the economy GH460 million in 2022.