The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) Ghana has held it 10th Quadrennial National Delegate Conference in the garden city Kumasi, on a theme “Our Employers Vision, Our Concern”
Addressing the members at Quadrennial conference, General Secretary of the Union Mr. Solomon Kotei revealed that during the period of the year 2012 to 2016 workers and employers and a large number of Ghanaians were burden with high taxes which include petroleum tax, communication tax, financial services tax, excessive import duties, excessive corporate tax, high interest rate and among others.
These nuisance taxes he said made transecting business in Ghana extremely costly compelling majority of Ghanaians very high cost of living.
This he commend the current government for taking some practical measures to reduce taxes in order to assuage the economic difficulties the ordinary Ghanaian is doing through.
He further revealed that the cause of high cost of transacting business in Ghana was the extremely high interest rate charge by banks, adding that the government move by aiding the private sector for accelerated economic growth has caused the Bank of Ghana to reduce its base rate significantly.
This he said the ICU Ghana Believes that will make bank credit more accessible to business and industry to speed up economic growth and development for Ghana.
Mr. Kotei reminded President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo to consider and direct the tax authorities to waive the taxes on overtime as it serve as a greater disincentive for workers to perform overtime work to meet the production target of their employers who are fortunate to have survived the energy crisis that hit the nation and threw a lot of business plans out of gear.
He said the energy crisis adversely affected business and industry causing unprecedented mass layoffs of worker and total closure of some business and industry, “thus worsening the already precarious unemployment situation in the country and negatively afflicting condition of work as many businesses and industry were operating under capacity, resulting in unprofitability” he noted.
On casualization of labour, Mr. Kotei stated that the issue of precarious work in the form of labour casualization was high on the agenda of the leadership, which the ICU Ghana found it prudent to change the battleground of the war on the evils of casualization and contractualisation and move it to the doorsteps of those unscrupulous employers.
He added that some employers have taken undue advantage of the permissibility of the law to contract workers to willfully collapse permanent employment and replace them with impunity with casual employment in bid to reap supernormal profits to the detriment of Ghanaian worker.
According to him the ICU Ghana has over the years had demanded more decent work for its members and potential ones by campaigning against precarious work in favour of work that is permanent, offering equal pay for equal work, work that gives opportunity for personal development and work that gives social protection, social insurance and financial security for the Ghanaian worker.
Story by Muhammed Faisal Mustapha
July 27, 2024
