Ghana’s tax initiative to promote shift from fuel to electric vehicles not done, importers lament

Their request is coming after the Finance Minister said in his 2019 budget that the Minister of Energy would introduce the tax to promote the shift from fuel-based vehicles to electric vehicles.

However, according to operators of electric vehicles they are yet to enjoy tax-free solutions stated by the finance minister in the 2019 budget presentation.

The Operations Manager at Solar Taxi Ghana, Arnold Anokye Amoateng told Accra-based Citi FM that they are rather made to pay higher taxes at the ports on each electric vehicle they import. According to him this does not help their business grow.

Mr Amoateng explained that a reduction in import duty can help achieve the country’s aim of shifting from fuel used vehicles to electric ones.

“On each vehicle, we paid between 60 to 80 percent of the cost of the vehicle. We realize that the tax on the importation of the vehicle parts was really high because our vehicles are not going to emit fuel, we were hoping the government will reduce the import duty to enable us to bring in more to meet the government’s agenda by 2020.”

Mr. Amoateng further says the government is yet to respond to their call on reaching an agreement with them.

“Some weeks ago the Energy Commission stated they want about 200 electric vehicles in Ghana by the end of 2020. So, we reached out to them and gave them our plans and specifics of what we actually wanted but they are yet to respond to us,” he added.

Currently, government charges about nine levies on every vehicle imported into the country including VAT, NHIL as well as the ECOWAS levy.