General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, ICU, Solomon Kotei, has challenged government to let Ghanaians see value for the taxes they pay. Such taxes should reflect in quality projects, programmes and services.
He also charged government not to overburden the small proportion of tax paying citizens with more taxes. The tax net, he stressed, should be widened to capture big-time business captains.
Mr. Kotei said this at the Accra Regional Council, Youth and Women Delegates Conference of the ICU.
The event is a prelude to ICU`s 11th National Delegates Conference scheduled for Accra later in the year, where new leaders will be elected to steer the affairs of the Union for the next four years.
The conference started with a report by the Accra Regional Officer, Thomas Atia. He touched on issues relating to negotiations, and how salaries were slashed during the COVID-19 pandemic; organizing for increased membership, grievances, as well as redundancies and pension security especially for those who lost their jobs and find it difficult to secure new ones.
“During the Covid, some employers got themselves carried away forgetting that in an attempt to reduce the salary of a worker, it is a negotiated item that is enshrined collective agreement. For that matter, they need to consult the national union for us to agree on the way and manner it should be done. Unfortunately, some did it on their own but when we got rid of it, we were able to do and it is in reverse.”
Deputy General Secretary of the ICU in-charge of Operations, Morgan Ayawine lauded the quality leadership exhibited over the years, which has helped in the dynamism and growth of the Union, since its formation in 1960.
“This union is the single largest nation union among a committee of about 20 national unions in this country. This great union has been blessed with good leadership. A leader who is a Reverend. No wonder over the years, people who try to run the ICU aground have not succeeded because of good leadership.”
In his keynote address, General Secretary of the ICU, Solomon Kotei, said as workers’ organisation, the Union is not oblivious of taxation and national development.
“We want to believe that in the 2021 budget that was read there are new taxes that has emerge much as ICU. We believe that all governments are able to manage their economies through the taxes that they levy on us. We are praying and wishing that we will get the value of the taxes that we pay.”
Mr. Kotei also turned his attention to the clean-up in the banking sector and the steps government took in dealing with some of the shocks which came with the exercise. He however, urged government to bring to book, those whose actions and inactions resulted in the eventual liquidation of the banks and Micro Finance Companies.
Mr. Kotei called on government to re-assess the whole financial sector clean-up so that companies that were faultless can be re-instated with the overall goal of reducing unemployment figures.
“We want to encourage government that those who mismanaged and did fraudulent act into operations must be dealt with to become deterrent for others. One pathetic element of it is that they lumped both the good and the bad together. Later it was realised some of those institutions shouldn’t have been closed down. We are demanding that if they need to be restored, they should be restored.”
The ICU General Secretary also spoke on the National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS which he suggested must be made to cater for critical illnesses, the cost of which are beyond the ordinary citizen, especially pensioners.
New Regional Council Executives, the Youth and Women Committees were elected and sworn into office.
They include Belinda Cochrane as Regional Council Chairperson, Thomas Atia, Secretary, Anita Yirenkyi, Women’s Committee President and Victory Johnson as Youth President.
