Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has clarified his comments which said he would rather pay incentives to churches than tax them.
According to him, his comment has been taken out of context adding that he was only joking.
During a meeting with clergy in the North East Region of Ghana, he explained that he sought to mean that the church had contributed a lot towards the development of the country, and deserved to be supported by government.
“I made that statement within the context of acknowledging the significant contributions of churches and other faith-based institutions to the country, including the construction of schools, hospitals, and other vital infrastructure,” he said.
“Look at the number of hospitals the churches have built. Look at the number of universities the churches have built and faith-based organizations have built. Look at the number of people the churches and faith-based organizations take care of on a daily basis.
“Can you imagine, just take a thought for a moment that you wake up tomorrow and all the schools, universities and hospitals the churches have built disappear? They just disappear. How would Ghana be like? Ghana will collapse. Isn’t it? We will not survive in this sort of situation because there will be chaos.
“So at that point I was joking and I said, people are talking about taxing churches. I don’t believe, and we will not tax churches. Because if you look at the work the churches have done, then I was joking then, maybe we should have actually paid them for what they did, not really trying to tax them. But I wasn’t really saying we should pay churches, no. I’m saying that we should give incentives to churches to do more, he added.
He continued by saying that due to the fact that churches help government in developing the country, they should be given tax exemptions.
“When we talk about our external development partners, we are giving them all sorts of import exemptions but when we talk about our internal development partners like churches or faith-based institutions, we don’t give them any exemptions but they do more in term of development than many of our external development partners so I’m saying that we should do more in the area of incentives such as tax exemptions on import duties when you are coming in to build hospitals or schools and so on to support the churches and other faith-based organizations.”