An Open Letter To President Mahama: Save Businesses To Save Jobs In Ghana

Your Excellency,

Ghana needs tax revenue to develop. but we cannot tax businesses to death and expect jobs to survive.

Today, businesses across Ghana are crying. The cumulative burden of taxes, levies, penalties, and compliance costs from GRA, District Assemblies, Ghana Tourism Authority and other agencies is choking them. Many are forced to pay huge taxes even when they make little or no profit.

We are seeing the results: Kama Groups, Koala, Game, Spur Supermarket, Glovo, Jumia Food, Dark and Lovely, hotels and other major businesses closing, downsizing, or leaving Ghana. Each closure is not just a shop closing. It is thousands of jobs lost, families struggling, and local suppliers collapsing.

And this is happening when our universities produce hundreds of thousands of graduates every year. If we don't protect businesses to absorb these young people, what future are we creating? We will have graduates without jobs and talent without opportunity.

Your Excellency, I respectfully appeal for 7 urgent actions:

1. Review the Cumulative Tax Burden: The total impact of all taxes, levies and charges on businesses, especially those operating on thin margins, must be urgently assessed. This includes Corporate Income Tax (25%), VAT (15%), NHIL (2.5%), GETFund Levy (2.5%), COVID-19 Levy (1%), Growth & Sustainability Levy (5%), Withholding Tax (3%-8%), Business Operating Permits, Property Rates, GTA Levy (1%), FDA fees, Fire Service Certificate, among others.
2. Distinguish Capital, Turnover and Profit: We must clearly differentiate between investment capital, business turnover, and actual taxable profit so that we do not erode the productive capital businesses need to survive.
3. Review Assessment and Collection Practices: Some tax assessments and enforcement methods create severe cash-flow crises for otherwise viable businesses. These must be reviewed.
4. Strengthen Consultation with the Private Sector: A stronger, structured consultation mechanism between GRA and the private sector must be established before tax policies with major business impacts are implemented.
5. Protect Employment in Tax Policy: The impact on jobs must be considered when designing business tax policies, particularly for companies that employ large numbers of Ghanaians.
6. Investigate Why Businesses Are Leaving Ghana: Government should commission an objective inquiry into why major businesses are closing or exiting Ghana, including the roles of taxation, operating costs, regulation, and the overall business environment.
7. Prioritize Compliance and Payment Plans Over Business Closure: The Ghana Revenue Authority and other revenue agencies — including District Assemblies Revenue Teams, the Ghana Tourism Authority, Foods and Drugs Authority, Ghana Standard Authority, and other regulatory bodies — should focus on achieving compliance and offering flexible payment plans rather than closing down businesses. It is better for Government to receive some revenue consistently than to receive nothing when a business collapses. Enforcement should protect employment and business continuity while ensuring tax obligations are met. Compliance, not closure, should be the primary goal of revenue authorities.

Mr. President, you cannot build a strong economy by collecting taxes today and destroying the businesses that will pay taxes tomorrow.

A living business pays taxes, creates jobs, buys from Ghanaians, and grows the economy. A dead business pays nothing.

Let us create a fair, predictable tax system that protects both revenue and jobs. Please act now.

Thank you for your kind consideration and your continued leadership.

Respectfully submitted

KWABENA OWUSU
Freelance Research Assistant, Leap and Height Foundation
Accra | [email protected]