General News of Wednesday, 16 October 2019

Source: happyghana.com

Communication Committee in parliament denies approving CST tax

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Ranking Member of the Communication Committee of Parliament, Hon.Alhassan Fuseini Bashir, has stated that the Communication Service Tax (CST) imposed on citizens by Government was neither discussed nor approved by the Communication Committee of Parliament.

He was speaking in an interview with Nana Afrifa Mensah on Happy FM’s “Epa Hoa Daben” show.

“The Communication Committee had a meeting regarding the funding for protection of our cyberspace. We discussed that one way to help with funds was to properly realign the expenditure on the 6% CST tax so that when it gets more efficient, it becomes savings. In the event, it is not enough, a small marginal increase of 5 to 10% maximum is added. As a ranking member of the committee, I can emphatically state that the figures of 50% increment were not made available to us”, he said.

The Hon. Minister added that the discussion by the Communication Committee of Parliament only centered on how the committee was going to support the establishment of a cybercrime unit to fight cybercrime.

The Communication Service Tax (CST) has been increased from 6% to 9% which is applicable to any recharge purchase by subscribers.