Accra, Nov. 6, AfricaNews -– The main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Tuesday rolled out its Industrial Blue Print for funding development and the provision of essential services through efficient, effective and equitable taxation of all citizens based on the principles of affordability.
The NDC Industrial Blue Print focuses on improving tax revenue by introducing reforms in the tax administration, shifting from reliance on direct taxes to indirect taxes and enhancing tax incentives instead of introducing new taxes.
It will lead to the forging of partnership of equals between the government and the business sector to decide strategies for promoting and enhancing the competitiveness of national production, Dr George Sipa-Adjah Yankey, NDC spokesman on the Economy, Trade and Industry, stated in Accra.
Dr Yankey stated this at a meeting dubbed “Private Sector Meeting with the Political parties,” organised by the Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF) in collaboration with Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) to discuss the plans of political parties for the period 2009-2012.
It was attended by only the NDC and the Democratic Freedom Party (PEF) out of five political parties invited. The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), the People’s National Convention (PNC) and Convention People’s Party, failed to turn up for the meeting which was to offer the parties an platform to explain their industrial policies as captured in their manifesto to the business community.
Dr Yankey who led the NDC economic team including Mr Kwesi Ahoi and Mr George Aboagye said: “A NDC-led government will reform the National Revenue Authority by appointing a Commissioner-General to ensure integrated tax administration, which will facilitate the sharing of information among the revenue agencies to achieve more accurate assessments, widen the tax net and avoid duplication of efforts.”
He said the new NDC government would introduce administrative reforms focusing on adequate and reliable funding of the revenue agencies, comprehensive computerisation of the direct and indirect tax systems, human resource capacity building, increased tax awareness and publicity programmes to enhance tax consciousness and increased efforts at tax mobilisation from the informal sector.
Dr Yankey said the NDC’s Blue Print was contained in the party’s “Election 2008 Manifesto for a Better Ghana,” stressing that a Prof Mills-led government would use the tax policy to encourage people to work. “Individuals should be taxed less to create adequate incentive for work and increase productivity; people should decide how to spend their money.
“The NDC’s tax policy will be to increase the disposable income of individuals by reducing individual tax rate through the broadening of the tax bands.”
Dr Yankey said the next NDC government will adopt carefully designed policies and programmes calculated to sustain macro economic stability appropriately anchored in coherent micro economic programmes.
It will provide the policy and programme framework for enterprises to re-tool, adopt modern technologies and access capital, and overcome historical and structural constraints that impede global competitiveness.
He said an NDC-led government would devise and implement an urgent national action plan for the modernisation of agriculture at the production, harvesting and marketing levels, rationalise access to agricultural lands, making strategic investments to reduce the risk inherent in agriculture.
Dr Sipa-Adjah Yankey said to attain the Industrial Blue Print, the NDC government’s monetary policy would be implemented largely by the Central Bank, to be guided by the convergence criteria of the ECOWAS Second Monetary Zone.
“We shall introduce measures to guard against the danger of speculative capital and capital flight, encourage further development of the market for bonds and other long-term securities, deepen the stock market, mobilise savings for investment and restructure the financial institutions to enable them to make credit more available to the productive sector,” he said.
Dr Yankey said NDC would lead Ghana into the status of a middle-income economy that registered in the lives, livelihoods and income of the ordinary people by the year 2020.
“This shall be accomplished by the adoption of prudent policies, better policy co-ordination and better management of the national economy to engage a broader majority of citizens to accelerate the pace and process of economic growth,” he said.
The meeting was attended by EMPRETEC, Real Estate Developers, Kente Weavers Association, Association of Small Scale Entrepreneurs, Ghana National Association of Farmers and Fishermen, Ghana Employers’ Association and Association of Ghana Industries.
end