The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) has demanded the immediate withdrawal of the 5% Excise Tax imposed on plastic manufacturing companies to prevent their collapse.

In a press release on Wednesday, July 3, the Union’s Secretary General, Alpha Shaban, stated, “We do not want to believe government is being insensitive to the plight of the business community and Ghanaians as well by imposing such a tax on plastic manufacturers in the country.”

GUTA is particularly concerned about the tax being introduced at a “time of instability of the cedi, coupled with increasing utility tariffs and other numerous taxes that the business community is grappling with.”

The Union questioned the economic rationale of such a policy when the government is purportedly promoting an industrialisation agenda and calling for import substitution.

They argue that imposing "such obnoxious tax on local manufacturing companies" will "collapse businesses which are already suffocating as a result of unbearable taxes in the system.”

The Union emphasised that the business community “can no longer accept any additional layer of cost to doing business in the country, so we appeal to the government to, as a matter of urgency, stop the implementation of the 5% excise tax to alleviate hardship in the country.”