Ghana losing mining investment over ‘punitive’ tax regime – Minority caucus.
Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin has warned that Ghana is losing critical mining investment due to what he describes as an uncompetitive and unstable tax regime.
This follows an engagement between the Minority Caucus and the Ghana Employers’ Association on March 31, where industry leaders raised concerns about mounting fiscal and regulatory pressures across key sectors.
“The cumulative burden of royalties, corporate income tax, growth and sustainability levies, dividends and ancillary charges has produced an effective tax rate that is, by independent analysis, among the highest of any comparable mining jurisdiction in the world,” he said.
The Effutu MP warned that the impact is already visible.
“The consequence is capital flight: Investment decisions that should be made in Ghana are being taken elsewhere, in jurisdictions with more stable and competitive fiscal regimes,” he added.
The Minority Leader also raised alarm over proposed changes to mining leases.
“The proposed reduction of mining lease tenure from thirty years to fifteen. Mining operations are capital-intensive, long-cycle investments. A 15-year lease does not provide the security necessary to justify the front-loaded expenditure such investments require,” he said.
He further pointed to policy inconsistency as a major deterrent to investors.
“The frequency with which Ghana’s mining fiscal regime has been revised, which has itself become a source of uncertainty sufficient to deter long-term commitment,” he noted.
The Minority described calls for a stable fiscal framework as justified.
“The case made to us for a statutory stability framework, one that provides investors with binding fiscal certainty over the life of a project, is a case we found compelling,” he said.
Beyond mining, Mr Afenyo-Markin criticised government for sidelining industry players in policymaking.
“Consultation that takes place after a decision has already been made is not consultation,” he stated.
He added that businesses often submit concerns that go unanswered.
“Industry bodies reported submitting formal written representations on pending legislation, receiving no substantive response and then watching their concerns be disregarded as if they had never been raised,” he said.
The Minority also flagged concerns about the use of artificial intelligence in customs assessments at the ports.
“Specific cases were raised in which customs assessments generated by the AI system bore no rational relationship to actual transaction values,” he revealed.
He cautioned that while technology has potential, safeguards are lacking.
“An AI enforcement system operating against an unreformed duty schedule, without a functioning appeals process, does not produce fairer outcomes. It produces the same unjust outcomes, more efficiently and at a greater scale,” he said.
On the broader business climate, the Minority said local enterprises are being crowded out.
“The picture described by Council members is of an operating environment that consistently advantages foreign capital over domestic enterprise,” he noted.
The Minority Caucus has pledged to escalate the issues in Parliament and push for reforms.
“We will oppose any legislative change that reduces investment security in the sector without commensurate benefit to Ghana,” he stressed.
The delegation to the meeting included Patricia Appiagyei, Jerry Ahmed Shaib, Kwaku Agyeman Kwarteng, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Michael Okyere Baafi, Fred Kyei Asamoah, Vincent Ekow Assafuah, Tweneboah Kodua Fokuo, John Darko, Frederick Addy, Gloria Owusu, and Damata Ama Appianimaa Salam.
“Ghana’s employers are not asking for favours. They are asking for a state that engages before it acts, a regulatory environment that is stable and proportionate and a Parliament that takes the private sector seriously enough to defend it,” Mr Afenyo-Markin said.
