The Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) wants parliament to probe the circumstances under which some banks, withheld about GHc83 million of petroleum taxes for more than three years without any reason.<\/p>\n
The Public Accounts Committee revealed at its sitting last Wednesday that the said amount was still with some of the banks.<\/p>\n
According to the Deputy Director of ACEP, Ben Boakye, this is as a result of Parliament\u2019s failure to demand timely accounts on public spending.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”veYDvGTBJhtDhP1l7AeGXAQxjpmQvKpJ”]Speaking to Citi News<\/strong>, Ben Boakye believes the banks involved should be made to refund the monies with the interest.<\/p>\n He explained that some of the collected taxes have been with the banks for over three years now \u201cand nobody really sought to take those monies from the banks and that is what makes us worry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause if you say you are taking taxes for a purpose and you don\u2019t end up using it for that purpose and banks keep the money, on what account and what reason do they have to keep these monies? It actually confirms our worry that we are not accounting for some of those levies as we should.\u201d<\/p>\n He lamented that such issues force the nation to keep paying for debts for too long.<\/p>\n \u201cFor instance if you look at the TOR debt recovery levy we have paying this levy for almost 13 years now and we haven\u2019t still finished paying for it. These are some of the reasons for the continuous payment of these levies because we don\u2019t account for them properly and citizens cannot demand accountability as a result,\u201d Ben Boakye added.<\/p>\n An earlier statement from ACEP said the revelation is also a duty call on Parliament to monitor the implementation of the laws they\u00a0make to ensure that implementing bodies do not flout the laws.<\/p>\n \u201cIf parliament had been\u00a0demanding timely accounting of public funds, we will not be talking about petroleum\u00a0levies kept in Banks for more than three years. Society would have benefited from the\u00a0investment of such monies,\u201d ACEP added.<\/p>\n They further called on the Minister of Finance to \u201cconsciously report on\u00a0the receipt and utilization of taxes imposed on petroleum products\u201d since \u201cthis will improve\u00a0transparency and accountability and also improve public confidence in the payment of\u00a0taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Godwin A. Allotey\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n