THE JFT EDIT

The telecommunication companies in Ghana have been ordered to cease the instant deduction of the Communications Service Tax also known as Talk Tax. “To minimize the negative impact of the current mode of deduction of the CST, the Ministry of Communications hereby directs the immediate implementation of the following measure: CST should be treated the same way VAT, NHIL, GETFUND levy and all other taxes and levies imposed on entities doing business in Ghana are treated.

These extraordinary upfront deductions of CST and notification of same to the subscribers must stop with immediate effect,” the Ministry of Communications directed. The directive was captured in a letter the Ministry wrote to the National Communications Authority (NCA) and sighted by citinewsroom.com.

The Ministry also directed that “all unused data and voice bundles purchased by subscribers do not expire and must be rolled over with the next recharge. MNOs will be subjected to strict compliance with exiting Quality of Service (QoS) standard to ensure value for the subscribers’ money in accordance with their licence obligations.”

Upfront ‘talk tax’ deductions making gov’t unpopular– Assibey Yeboah

The Chairman of Parliament’s Finance Committee, Dr. Mark Assibey Yeboah had earlier chided the telecommunication companies over their mode of implementation of the 9% increment in the Communication Service Tax.

According to him, the operation of the Telcos is a deliberate strategy to make the government unpopular.

Following the increment of the CST from 6% to 9% the telcos introduced an instant deduction of the tax.

For instance, a recharge of GHc 10 worth of talk time gives consumers GHc9.2 as a result of the tax.

Speaking to Citi News after an Article IV consultation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday, Dr. Assibey Yeboah questioned the motive of the Telcos for implementing the tax in such a manner.

“The telcos want to make gov’t unpopular because why didn’t send the text mages of the deduction when the tax was 6 percent. They were paying the government and we knew how much we were collecting from them so if any body tells me they were absolved by the Telcos, then that is absurd”, he fumed.

Ato Forson disagrees

But the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Finance Committee, Cassiel Ato Forson, “strongly disagreed” with claims of sabotage by the Telcos in the implementation of the 9% increment in the CST.

Speaking on Eyewitness News earlier in the week, Ato Forson explained that the Telcos had to adopt the new style of notifying customers immediately of deductions on their recharges in order to avoid the accusation of cheating that has always being leveled against them by consumers.

“First of all, let me say that I strongly disagree with my colleague the Chairman of the Finance Committee in the sense that an increment of 50% is quite substantial and again it is important to know that Telcos have been charging this tax and it has been reflecting on our bills from day one. The difficulty is that often times Ghanaians blame the Telcos of that they buy credit and they have cheated them in the usage of the credit and so for that matter, it is important for them to show to all of us how much of this component goes into the credit itself and how much goes into taxes.” The telecommunication companies in Ghana have been ordered to cease the instant deduction of the Communications Service Tax also known as Talk Tax.

“To minimize the negative impact of the current mode of deduction of the CST, the Ministry of Communications hereby directs the immediate implementation of the following measure: CST should be treated the same way VAT, NHIL, GETFUND levy and all other taxes and levies imposed on entities doing business in Ghana are treated.

These extraordinary upfront deductions of CST and notification of same to the subscribers must stop with immediate effect,” the Ministry of Communications directed.

The directive was captured in a letter the Ministry wrote to the National Communications Authority (NCA) and sighted by citinewsroom.com.

The Ministry also directed that “all unused data and voice bundles purchased by subscribers do not expire and must be rolled over with the next recharge. MNOs will be subjected to strict compliance with exiting Quality of Service (QoS) standard to ensure value for the subscribers’ money in accordance with their licence obligations.”

Upfront ‘talk tax’ deductions making gov’t unpopular– Assibey Yeboah

The Chairman of Parliament’s Finance Committee, Dr. Mark Assibey Yeboah had earlier chided the telecommunication companies over their mode of implementation of the 9% increment in the Communication Service Tax.

According to him, the operation of the Telcos is a deliberate strategy to make the government unpopular.

Following the increment of the CST from 6% to 9% the telcos introduced an instant deduction of the tax.

For instance, a recharge of GHc 10 worth of talk time gives consumers GHc9.2 as a result of the tax.

Speaking to Citi News after an Article IV consultation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday, Dr. Assibey Yeboah questioned the motive of the Telcos for implementing the tax in such a manner.

“The telcos want to make gov’t unpopular because why didn’t send the text mages of the deduction when the tax was 6 percent. They were paying the government and we knew how much we were collecting from them so if any body tells me they were absolved by the Telcos, then that is absurd”, he fumed.

Ato Forson disagrees

But the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Finance Committee, Cassiel Ato Forson, “strongly disagreed” with claims of sabotage by the Telcos in the implementation of the 9% increment in the CST.

Speaking on Eyewitness News earlier in the week, Ato Forson explained that the Telcos had to adopt the new style of notifying customers immediately of deductions on their recharges in order to avoid the accusation of cheating that has always being leveled against them by consumers.

“First of all, let me say that I strongly disagree with my colleague the Chairman of the Finance Committee in the sense that an increment of 50% is quite substantial and again it is important to know that Telcos have been charging this tax and it has been reflecting on our bills from day one. The difficulty is that often times Ghanaians blame the Telcos of that they buy credit and they have cheated them in the usage of the credit and so for that matter, it is important for them to show to all of us how much of this component goes into the credit itself and how much goes into taxes.”

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Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana is not Ghanaian but a Liberian born to a Liberian father known as Kofi Nwia, and Nyaniba, the woman we have been reading in the history books as his mother rather adopted Kwame Nkrumah when he first came to Ghana, A former Gold Coast Politician, Joshua Attoh Quarshie, has alleged.

According to him, the Catholic missionaries in Gold Coast looked for Nyaniba to care for Nkrumah when he first arrived in Ghana with his briefcase.

“Nkrumah is Liberian and not Ghanaian… his original name is Nwia, Francis Nwia… no one knows his mother… Nyaniba was a barren woman who had no child and they used to carry some sticks at the back…” he said on FootPrint on Citi TV.

Mr Attoh Quarshie indicated that Kwame Nkrumah had some artificial cousins like Obed Andoh, Aya Kumi among others.

He stated that as ungrateful as Nkrumah was, he did not acknowledge one Ga man known as Paa Solomon who gave him a place of abode at present day Lagos town.

“Blankson-Lartey’s house is the place Nkrumah used to go and eat and the first cloth Nkrumah put on was the Ashanti Kente which belonged to Blankson-Lartey… Nkrumah came with a briefcase, he had no potomanto [portmanteau], nothing,” Attoh Quarshie remarked.

Recounting how the Convention People’s Party (CPP) was formed Mr Attoh Quarshie stated that when Nkrumah fell out with the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), its leaders called him to a meeting at Saltpond to reconcile with him, but by then he (Nkrumah) had formed the Committee on Youth Organisations (CYO).

He added that the CYO members threatened to kill Nkrumah if he did not resign from the UGCC. He obliged and later turned the CYO into CPP.

He stressed however that the slogan of the CPP “Self Government Now” energised the youth.

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A Pakistani court is due to hear an appeal to free a doctor accused of helping the US track down al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

The Peshawar High Court will hear Shakil Afridi’s case on Wednesday, the first time it will be heard in an open court in Pakistan. He was never formally charged for his role in the 2011 operation to hunt down and kill the world’s most-wanted man. Dr Afridi has always argued that he was denied a fair trial.

His imprisonment caused outrage and saw the US cut federal aid to Pakistan by $33m (£27m) – $1m for every year of his jail sentence. US President Donald Trump promised in his 2016 election campaign that he would get Dr Afridi released in “two minutes” if elected – but that never happened.

While the doctor is considered a hero in the US, in Pakistan he is seen by many as a traitor who brought humiliation to the country – US Navy Seals had been able to fly in, kill the 9/11 attacks mastermind and get away with his body without even being challenged, far less stopped.

And it raised uncomfortable questions about whether Pakistan’s military, which runs its security policy, was aware Bin Laden was in the country. Pakistan remains an uneasy partner to this day in the US-led fight against militant Islam.

Who is Shakil Afridi?

Dr Afridi was the top medic in Khyber tribal district and as head of health services had overseen a number of US-funded vaccination programmes. As a government employee, he set up a similar hepatitis B vaccination programme, including in the garrison town of Abbottabad, where it turned out Bin Laden was living right under the noses of the military.

The US intelligence plan was to obtain a blood sample from one of the children living in the Abbottabad compound, so that DNA tests could determine whether or not they were relatives of Bin Laden. It’s thought that one of Dr Afridi’s staff visited the compound and collected blood – but it’s not known whether this proved central to the Americans’ success in locating their target. Dr Afridi was taken into custody on 23 May 2011, 20 days after Bin Laden was killed. He is thought to have been in his late forties at the time.

Little is known about his personal life, other than that he came from a humble background and graduated from Khyber Medical College in 1990. His family have been living in hiding since his arrest, fearing militant attacks.

His wife is an educationalist from Abbottabad who was principal of a government school before they went into hiding. The couple have three children – two boys and a girl, at least two of them now adults. In January 2012, US officials publicly admitted that Dr Afridi had worked for US intelligence.

But it’s far from clear how much he knew about his role for the CIA. He said nothing to this effect during his deposition at the Abbottabad Commission into the killing. Dr Afridi did not know who the target of the operation was when the CIA recruited him, according to a Pakistani investigation.

What was he convicted of?

Although initially accused of treason, Dr Afridi was ultimately jailed in May 2012, having been found guilty of funding Lashkar-e-Islam, a banned militant group that is now defunct. He was sentenced to 33 years in prison for alleged links to the group by a tribal court, although this was later reduced to 23 years on appeal.

Dr Afridi was also accused of offering emergency medical aid to its fighters and allowing the group to hold meetings in the government hospital he headed.

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Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko has reacted to allegations by embattled Professor, Ransford Edward Gyampo of the University of Ghana, urging him to desist from making preposterous remarks that the BBC Africa Eye exposé is an attempt by some Ghanaians to gag him.

The BBC Africa Eye documentary captioned “sex for grades” implicated Prof Gyampo in alleged acts of sexual misconduct. But in his response, Prof. Gyampo stated that the documentary is an orchestrated attempt by those he is critical of, to silence him.

But the confidante of President Akufo-Addo and high-ranking member of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has advised him to zip up his trousers instead.

“I wish Prof Gyampo well in defending his reputation and will defend his right to do so. But, he must not link his issue with BBC on this “Sex for Grades” allegation to any ludicrous attempt to ‘zip’ his lips from criticizing Govt. He should not confuse us with where his zip is…”, he stressed on Social media.

Meanwhile the chairperson of the Anti-Sexual Harassment committee of the University of Ghana (UG), Dr. Margaret Amoakohene has refuted “sex for grades” allegations made against two lecturers of the institution cited in the BBC Africa Eye documentary, saying that there is no evidence that shows that they had sex with the students to give them better grades.

Two of the university’s prominent lecturers, a Political Science lecturer, Prof. Ransford Gyampo and a lecturer at the College of Education, Dr. Paul Kwame Bukator have been implicated in the ‘Sex for Grades’ exposé.

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The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has on Monday October 7 confirmed it had issued approval licenses to 6 firms to commence operations on the Ghana Inter-bank Forex Market effective October 1, 2019 to December 31, 2020.

According to a statement by the central bank, the firms would join other commercial banks that have the approval to trade on behalf of their clients when it comes to participating in the foreign Exchange Market supervised by the Bank of Ghana.

The six firms are; ICAP FX Global, ICAP Plc, Obsidian Achemer, Fenics MD, Emerging Africa Ltd and Cougar.

The statement further noted: ‘’Section 3.13.1 of the Ghana Interbank Forex Market Conduct act stipulates; “Local and International FX Brokers who want to operate in Ghana’s forex market are required to obtain prior approval from the Bank of Ghana at the beginning of every calendar year. The Bank of Ghana shall publish a list of approved Local and International FX Brokers on its website”.

The government has announced it is going to change power installation at the Jubilee House to solar power in the coming days as part of a bigger national agenda to promote the use of solar energy in the country.

Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo who disclosed this at the opening of the 5th Renewable Energy Fair and National Energy symposium said the move is to increase the use of renewable energy and reduce the financial burden government puts on utility distributors.

“We are committed to the promotion of renewable energy in the country. We are in the process of connecting the Jubilee House on solar at the seat of government following a successful connection of the Energy Ministry to solar which has reduced the power intake from the national grid and lessening the economic and financial burden on their activities.”

He further disclosed that government is seeking funds from donors to connect all government facilities to solar power.

“We are also negotiating with our development partners to provide funding support to connect key government facilities including the Ministries, municipalities, departments and agencies to solar power”

This, he believes, will also reduce government’s burden of having to pay utility bills for those establishments

Meanwhile, the government has assured that the renegotiation of the Take or Pay contracts will reduce the cost of power in the country.

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta in the Mid-year budget review announces a renegotiation exercise for all contracts within the Energy sector as a way of reducing the financial burden regarding energy generation in the contract.

According to the government, there is the need to renegotiate the contracts within the energy sector which were all issued on take or pay basis.

This means that while the country is paying for all the over 4,000 megawatts of power generated, only 40% which is equivalent to 2,300 MegaWatts is actually used, while the cost of the remaining 60 percent of excess capacity is a loss incurred by the state.

Wife of  H.E. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia; the  Vice President of Ghana, has assured her husband of her undying love for him as he celebrates his 56th birthday Monday, October 7.

The loving wife; Samira Bawumia In her birthday message via Twitter, wrote;

“We thank Allah for another year of life, good health and favour. I pray for His continued guidance and blessings for the years to come, especially as you serve our dear nation.”

Adding to that, she wrote “Thank you for being an amazing hubby and daddy. The kids and I love you dearly.”

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At least 10 protesters have been arrested after the demonstration by law students on Monday ended abruptly.

The demonstration, seeking reforms to legal education in Ghana, started peacefully at the main campus of the Ghana School of Law. But on their last-ditch effort to present their petition to the president at the Jubilee House was met with resistance from police officers, who claimed the demonstrating students had no permission to enter the presidency.

According to the students, the police lured them to come close but started splashing hot water on them. The police splashed the water as far as the Canadian Embassy on the Independence Avenue. The Embassy apparently opened its doors to the fear-gripped students, who vowed to stay indoors till those arrested are released.

The demonstration was instigated by recently recorded mass failure of the entrance examinations of the School.

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