$3.9-million tax waiver for hotel: MFWA petitions Speaker of Parliament

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has petitioned the Speaker of Parliament to investigate and review the approval of a US$ 3.9 million tax waiver for the construction of a hotel ostensibly under the government’s One District One Factory (IDIF) initiative.

The MFWA wants the Speaker of Parliament to “investigate the processes leading to the granting of this exemption to 4-Mac Limited and if it is determined that the tax exemption is flawed, take the necessary legislative measures to have it annulled and reconsidered.”

The exemption was approved under the 1D1F programme for the construction of the 4-star hotel.

In August 2023, The Fourth Estate, which is a non-profit accountability journalism project of the MFWA, published a series of reports on how Parliament granted a US$4 million tax waiver to 4-Mac to construct a hotel at the Airport Residential Area.

The tax waiver was intended to cover import bills and other import-related taxes of the company. Additionally, the company received a five-year tax holiday.

The Finance Committee recommended approval of the request but reduced the amount from US$6,389,428 to US$3,919,628 in its report to the House on November 25, 2022.

The finance committee report, approving the tax waiver pointed out that “included in the taxes to be waived was domestic Value Added Tax which is a domestic indirect tax. The Committee, however, considered that in the light of the new tax exemptions regime, domestic VAT should be removed from the basket of waivers.”

The Finance Committee report also stated that the tax waiver for 4-Mac Limited is consistent with the government’s overall policy to propel industrial growth under the 1D1F programme as it would contribute significantly to job creation in the tourism and hospitality sector.

The committee also made reference to the Ghana Investment Promotion Act as a justification for the endorsement.

On December 7, 2022, Members of Parliament approved the tax exemption for 4-Mac Limited.

The Committee’s report, signed by its Chairman, Mr Kwaku Kwarteng, said the waiver for 4-Mac Limited was part of an “effort to speed up industrialisation and in line with the government’s policy of granting tax reliefs to new companies under the One District One Factory Programme, the government intends to grant tax reliefs on equipment and materials to be imported for the execution of the Le Meridien Hotel project.”

But many have raised questions about how a hotel qualifies as a factory to “speed up industrialization.”

In response to the Fourth Estate’s publication, Mr Kwarteng claimed in an interview with Accra-based, Joy 99.7 FM, that the reference to the 1D1F in the committee’s report was an embarrassing error. 

He further suggested that the approval was not given under the 1D1F programme, but rather under the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) Act, 2013 (Act 865). He admitted in the interview that members of the committee failed to meticulously go through the final report, which he signed.

The MFWA, in its petition, points out that if the tax exemption for 4-Mac Hotel was approved in error, it must “not be allowed to stand.”

“Parliament is a house of records. Allowing this mistaken tax exemption to stand sets a dangerous precedent for future legislative errors.,” the petition also said.

The MFWA argues that granting import tax exemption under the 1D1F programme to a hotel, which is not a factory, is unjustifiable considering that the government is also imposing more taxes on the citizens.

“The imposition of high taxes on the citizens to fulfill the International Monetary Fund conditionalities makes this tax exemption for a hotel even more untenable,” the MFWA said in its petition to the Speaker of Parliament.

“The principles of accountability and transparency are paramount in maintaining public trust in the legislative processes of Parliament,” the MFWA added in the petition signed by its Executive Director, Sulemana Braimah.

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