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NPP Manifesto launch: Bawumia outlines 9 incentives to boost businesses
The flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has outlined 9 incentives to boost businesses when voted as President.
According to him, this is aimed at creating a business-friendly environment for businesses to thrive.
He made this promise when presenting the party’s 2024 manifesto in Takoradi.
In his address, he outlined plans for a new tax regime under his administration, specifically designed to foster business growth and stimulate economic development.
Read the 9 incentives below
(a) Offering Investment Tax Credits (ITC) to incentivize Ghanaian start-ups in strategic sectors during their first three years of operation.
(b) Introducing a Flat Rate for all importers to bring predictability and stability to the pricing of imported goods.
(c) Harmonizing port charges to align with those of competing regional ports, particularly in Togo, ensuring that duties at Ghanaian ports are the same or lower.
(d) Utilizing the government’s purchasing power to stimulate industrial expansion and business growth by implementing a “Buy Ghana First” policy, where public sector procurement prioritizes locally produced goods and services.
(e) Reforming electricity tariffs to establish a structure where commercial rates are equal to or lower than residential rates, ensuring affordable power for industries and businesses.
(f) Establishing an SME Bank to address the specific financing needs of small and medium enterprises, which employ over 80% of Ghanaians.
(g) Reforming the licensing regime for the small-scale mining sector, reducing the minerals export tax to 1% to curb gold smuggling, and establishing a Minerals Development Bank to finance viable local mineral projects, small-scale miners, and Ghanaian mining services firms.
(h) Completing the digitalization of land titling and registration, enabling property owners to use their assets as collateral to raise capital for business growth and expansion.
unapparelled luxury
(i) Creating Special Economic Zones (Free Zones) in collaboration with the private sector at major border towns such as Aflao, Paga, Elubo, Sampa, and Tatale to enhance economic activity, increase exports, reduce smuggling, and create jobs.
By Edem Mensah-Tsotorme
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Evangelist Mama Pat sentenced to 15 years in prison for defrauding by false pretence
Founder of the Heaven Way Champion International Ministry at Weija, Patricia Asiedua, also known as Agradaa has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in hard labour by the Accra Circuit Court.
This was after the court found her guilty on multiple counts of defrauding by false pretence and charlatanic advertisment in newspapers.
The self-styled evangelist used her church to defraud members of the public under the guise of “money doubling.”
Before passing sentence, the judge ordered that pregnancy test be conducted on her.
BY MALIK SULLEMANA
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Court awards GHC750,000 damages against ABSA Bank for defamation
A High court in Accra (General Jurisdiction 7) has awarded a cost of GH750,000 against ABSA Bank Ghana Limited for defaming Mr Adri Hopson, a real estate developer.
In 2019, Mr Hopson, the plaintiff sold two separate two-bedroom houses to two employees of the Bank, Isaac Quao and Linda Mokeh.
The plaintiff had stated in his writ of summons filed by his lawyer, Nii Kpakpo Samoa Addo that he was subsequently invited by the Greater Accra Regional Police Command to respond to a complaint of fraud lodged against him by the Bank, the defendant, regarding his sale of encumbered properties to its two employees.
Meanwhile, the plaintiff had argued that the properties were not encumbered in any way, therefore, the act of the defendant in lodging a complaint against him was defamatory.
Mr Hopson contends that he was not involved in any contract or transaction with the defendant Bank.
In his judgement on May 22, the presiding judge, Justice Ali Baba Abature held that the complaint of defrauding by false pretences lodged against the plaintiff by the defendant Bank was defamatory as it was made out of malice without probable and reasonable cause, thereby harming the reputation of the plaintiff as a successful and respected. businessman.
Justice Abature stated that the two workers of the Bank were in occupation of the properties the plaintiff genuinely sold to them, with one of them admitting that she has registered her title to the property she purchased.
Consequently, the judge awarded GH300,000 in general damages to be paid to the plaintiff by the defendant, punitive damages of GH300,000, compensatory damages of GH150,000. and costs, including services cost of GH100,000 against defendant in favour of the plaintiff.
The defendant had told the court that the plaintiff mortgaged the properties he sold to its employees, but Nii Addo, counsel for the plaintiff averred that the
properties the defendant claimed were mortgaged by his client were not the properties sold to the two employees of the defendant.
It was the case of the plaintiff that he dealt with the defendant’s two employees in good faith and did not suppress any material fact from the employees and that malice occurred on the part of the defendant when the complaint of fraud was made to the police with intent to harm his image or reputation.
The defendant, on the other hand, denied all the averments of the plaintiff.
In its statement of defence, ABSA averred that the results of an initial search conducted by its Central Securities Unit (CSU) on the properties sold to its two employees by the plaintiff indicated that there were no encumbrances on the property before it accepted the mentioned employees’ application for a mortgage under its Bank Staff Mortgage Loan Policy.
However, the defendant stated that subsequent investigations at the time the said employees’ mortgage documents were submitted to the Land Title Division for registration of its interest in the properties by virtue of the mortgage loan it granted to the two employees for the purchase of the properties have revealed that the properties the plaintiff sold to its two employees were encumbered as a mortgage had already been registered on the said properties.
Consequently, the defendant’s mortgage interest charge in the two properties could not be registered thereby rendering the mortgage facility it granted to its two mentioned employees unsecure.
As a result, ABSA said its Fraud Risk Management and Investigations Unit was commissioned to conduct forensic investigations into the conduct of the plaintiff, and the investigation report revealed that that the Plaintiff had mortgaged certain properties including the two that Plaintiff sold to its employees to First Trust Savings and Loans for a loan facility.
Defendant therefore lodged a complaint with the Regional Crime Officer of the Greater Accra Regional Police Command to investigate the matter.
BY MALIK SULLEMANA
