Cut down expenditure and we will gladly pay the taxes you impose — Sam Korankye Ankrah to gov’t

The Founder of Royal House Chapel, Rev. Sam Korankye Ankrah has urged government to cut down its national expenditure to motivate the citizenry to gladly pay taxes.

According to him, leaders must be seen punishing themselves a little by doing away with extravagant lifestyles.

He said if Ghanaians know that government is protecting the public purse, they will gladly pay any tax when it is introduced.

“We are asking the members of the ruling class to show the example by cutting down our national expenditure, they must punish themselves a little bit and when we see that expenditure is being cut down, if they call upon us to pay taxes, whatever they ask us to pay, we shall pay with gladness and willingness, because we all know that we all suffer to gain,” Rev. Sam Korankye Ankrah.

The Founder of Royal House Chapel said this while speaking at a ceremony in Accra, where a US President’s Lifetime Achievement Award was conferred on him.

He shared, “The reason we elect you into public office is to protect the purse and the monies of this nation to develop and to move this nation forward. We don’t elect them to amass wealth for themselves and to forget about us once they get to that place. This is what brings anger and this is what brings the kind of challenges we have in Africa here.

“But if our politicians place at their heart, first and foremost, the desire to see this nation move forward, all of us as citizens of this nation will have an equitable share of the national cake.”

Rev. Sam Korankye Ankrah further noted that “If they [government] ensure that our young people will get the jobs to do, if they can ensure that people can put food on their table three times a day, if they can ensure that our children are educated, if they can ensure that at the end of the day, everybody can get a place to lay your heads, nobody will complain, nobody will fight, there will be no agitation and there will be no reason for any military intervention in our nation.”

This is coming on the back of the agitations from Ghanaians after the government announced plans to introduce and implement an Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy).

Critics have argued that government has been a bad manager of the country’s resources hence the rejection of the e-levy.

They further argue that there is no reason to pay the levy when there is no assurance that money generated will be put to good use.