The next National Democratic Congress (NDC) government will review the Customs (Amendment) Act, 2020 (Acts 1014) to scrap the law banning importation of salvaged vehicles.
Mr John Dramani Mahama, the Flagbearer of the NDC, said this would save the local automobile industry, especially Suame Magazine, Kokompe and Abossey Okai from collapse.
He said the next NDC administration would encourage vehicle assembling companies in the country to operate as a complement to the local industry.
Mr Mahama said this at the launch of the NDC’s Manifesto in Accra, on the theme: “The Peoples Manifesto – Changing Lives: Transforming Ghana”.
He said micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) contributed significantly to private sector development and offered sustainable and meaningful jobs to the majority of Ghanaians.
He said many MSMEs could not endure the harsh economic conditions following the mismanagement of the economy by the current government coupled with the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had forced businesses to lay-off most of their workers, especially those that could not keep up with production.
Former President Mahama said beginning 2021 and into the medium-term, the next NDC government would offer several tax reliefs to the private sector, especially MSMEs, to enable them to recover and get back to their full operating capacities.
He said it would ensure that firms leveraged on those tax reliefs to expand their scope of production and employ more Ghanaians.
With regards to private sector tax initiatives, Mr Mahama said from 2021, MSMEs would be given tax reliefs to support their operations and that within the first three months, the NDC government would lay before Parliament several bills that would seek to grant the following tax reliefs to MSMEs.
Tax cuts for jobs (effective 2021), exemption of small businesses from corporate and personal income tax, reduction of corporate income tax for medium size companies from the current 25 per cent to 15 per cent and exemption of newly established medium-sized companies that employ up to 20 people from the payment of corporate income tax for one year.
Former President Mahama said newly established medium companies that employed more than 20 staff would be exempted entirely from the payment of corporate income tax for two years and exempt commercial vehicles and other equipment imported into the country for commercial, industrial and agricultural purposes from import duty.
