Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) wants parliament to probe the circumstances under which some banks, withheld about GHc83million of petroleum taxes for more than three years without any reason.
The Public Accounts Committee revealed at its sitting last Wednesday that the said amount was still with some of the banks.
According to the Deputy Director of ACEP, Ben Boakye, this is as a result of Parliament’s failure to demand timely accounts on public spending.
Speaking to Citi News, Ben Boakye believes the banks involved should be made to refund the monies with the interest.
He explained that some of the collected taxes have been with the banks for over three years now “and nobody really sought to take those monies from the banks and that is what makes us worry.”
“Because if you say you are taking taxes for a purpose and you don’t 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.”
He lamented that such issues force the nation to keep paying for debts for too long.
“For instance if you look at the TOR debt recovery levy we have paying this levy for almost 13 years now and we haven’t still finished paying for it. These are some of the reasons for the continuous payment of these levies because we don’t account for them properly and citizens cannot demand accountability as a result,” Ben Boakye added.
An earlier statement from ACEP said the revelation is also a duty call on Parliament to monitor the implementation of the laws they make to ensure that implementing bodies do not flout the laws.
“If parliament had been demanding timely accounting of public funds, we will not be talking about petroleum levies kept in Banks for more than three years.
Society would have benefited from the investment of such monies,” ACEP added.
They further called on the Minister of Finance to “consciously report on the receipt and utilization of taxes imposed on petroleum products” since “this will improve transparency and accountability and also improve public confidence in the payment of taxes.”
Source: citifmonline.com
