The Ghana Plastic Manufacturers Association (GPMA) has called on the government to immediately suspend the 5 per cent tax on the ex-factory price of all locally manufactured plastic products.
The plastic manufacturers argued that the newly imposed tax would affect the general manufacturing business community and customers since the prices of the products on the market would increase.
The president of the GPMA, Ebbo Botwey, addressing the media in Accra, indicated that some manufacturing companies had already suspended production and put workers on leave due to the high foreign exchange rates, high benchmark values and high operating overhead costs.
In early March 2024, the government, through the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), petitioned the plastic manufacturers to start paying a 5 per cent excise tax on all locally manufactured plastic products.
The GPMA include the National Association of Sachet & Packaged Water Producers, the Ghana Union of Traders Association, the Association of Ghana Industries and the Food & Beverage Association of Ghana.
Meanwhile, the association has pledged to continue lobbying the government for the scrapping of the 5 per cent tax.
“We do business, so we would do the best that we can to make sure that government would listen and then do the needful,” Mr Botwe emphasised.
The association called for better, deeper, and broad-based stakeholder consultation on the idea of any excise tax on locally manufactured products and for the establishment of a well-defined locally manufactured plastic list along with the appropriate guidelines to avoid unambiguity of the law.
“Indeed, it will be an unfair tax on products such as plastic chairs, plastic tables, plastic buckets, plastic household wares, water tanks, PVC Pipes, plastic T&J, plastic crates, data duct pipes, paint gallons, industrial containers, lubricants and engine oil gallons,” Mr. Botwey noted.