The Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Alban Bagbin, has urged the government and future governments to scrap taxes on sanitary pads.
He expressed worry at the government’s failure to remove taxes on sanitary pads in the Mid-Year budget review.
“On the issue of sanitary pads, the government should rethink it. Because the taxes are not only imported ones, even the locally produced ones are taxed. The businesses met me two days ago and told me that even the raw materials are taxed.
They were complaining about production, to the extent that some of them folded up. This is something that I take seriously. Don’t let us miss the point, I will not tax a woman, my mother for producing me. I don’t support that at all, so the state must take this matter seriously.”
“There are countries where it is for free, there are countries where a lot of taxes have been removed. That is an issue I am very passionate about, to all governments that will come, we can do without it.
How much do we make from this taxation? We like taxing the poor, we are not taxing the rich,” Mr. Bagbin said.
The Speaker had earlier urged the government to take advantage of the Mid-Year budget review to scrap taxes on sanitary pads, but in Mr Ken Ofori Atta, the Minister for Finance’s 2023 Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review of the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government presentation to Parliament on Monday, July 31 failed to address that.
The presentation of the Budget Statement by Mr. Ofori-Atta, was by Article 179 of the 1992 Constitution and the Public Financial Management Act, 2016.
Mr. Bagbin said this when Mr. Alex Tetteh Djornobuah, a New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for Sefwi Akontombra, contributed to the debate on the budget on the Floor of Parliament.
Mr. Tetteh Djornobuah’s contribution sought to explain the imposition of the taxes.
Meanwhile, there have been calls by stakeholders on the government to scrap the taxes on sanitary pads.
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