The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Chamber for Tourism Industry Ghana, Emmanuel Treku has asked the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) to sensitize players in the hospitality industry on the need to pay their 1% tax levy rather than shutting down facilities which have failed to do so in recent times.
The GTA last week shut down three hospitality centres in the capital for owing over GH¢600,000 in levies.
Business operators in the tourism and hospitality sector are mandated to pay their 1 percent tourism levy, but Hill view hotel, Suma court hotel and Tayiba Cafe all in Accra failed to do so after several attempts to get them to comply.
In an interview with Citi Business News, Emmanuel Treku said players in the hospitality are willing to pay all levies expected of them but asked for some form of collaboration and sensitization from the GTA even as the hospitality industry is trying to recover and cope with the impact of COVID-19.
“We are partners in this business. Closing a facility while it is supposed to be a corrective measure to make sure the systems are running [is problematic]. Shutting down drives customers away, and the authority wants to go to the same places to collect levies from them. So I think this approach should be looked at again. Nobody is saying that they are not willing to pay, but the year just began and everybody is restructuring, so this is something that should be done in a friendly manner so that every business will be sustained and we can have the tourism industry well sanitized”.
