The Deputy Ranking Member of the Trade and Industry Committee of Parliament, Yusif Sulemana, believes that the objectives for which the One District One Factory (1D1F) initiative was introduced have not yet been met.
He stated that the 1D1F was a policy by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government to establish new factories in every district in the country to create employment and drive industrialization, but this vision is yet to be realized.
“Four to five years down the line after the implementation of the 1D1F policy, the objectives to which it was introduced had not been met. It is supposed to ensure that we improve upon our foreign reserves. It’s supposed to ensure that we have created jobs, that have not been achieved. It’s to ensure that we have factories in all the districts of this country, that has also not been met,” he said in an interview on Eyewitness News on Citi FM.
He said they couldn’t quantify the benefits accrued from the 1D1F, despite the tax waivers, alleging that the system was abused.
“When a blind man wants to throw a stone at you, he knows what his feet are on. So what we are saying to them is that the companies they have shortlisted and sent to us, many Ghanaians are complaining that they have also applied, yet because there are no criteria or selection, they have been left out. It got to a time when the system was being abused, so we suggested that we suspend the granting of tax exemptions and come up with the Tax Exemption Act.”
He further stated, “Before the enactment of this tax exemption act, we had realized that we could not even quantify the kind of benefits that we were getting as a result of granting those tax exemptions, so there was a need to put that tax in place.”
The Bole Bamboi MP emphasized that the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is not against industrialization through the 1D1F, but concerned about the the tax exemptions that have not inured to the benefit of the state.
The Ranking Member of the Trade and Industry committee said there’s currently a GH¢5.7 billion tax exemption request in Parliament, where the finance committee is asking that these companies be given tax exemptions.
He added, “We have been reliably informed that the Ministry of Finance has about GH¢7 billion in tax requests in the form of tax exemptions that the ministry is preparing to forward to us. When you put the two together, it’s about GH¢12.5 billion. That is what the government, and for that matter, the Ministry of Finance as well as the Ministry of Trades, are willing to give to their friends and cronies in the name of 1D1F.”
