Remove 5% VAT on real estate charges – GREDA to Nana Addo

The Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA), has called on the president-elect Nana Akufo-Addo to remove the 5% VAT on the sale of real estates.

According to them Nana Addo would have ‘walked the talk’ if he does that since it was part of his campaign promise ahead of the 2016 elections.

The Executive Secretary of the Association Samuel Amegayibor said “that is the beginning of it to walk the talk meaning that whatever you promised the people, you go ahead to deliver.”

The VAT, was reduced from 17.5%  to 5% by the outgoing NDC government but the real estate developers want it scrapped.

Amegayibor indicates that this has reduced their sales hence the need for a total removal.

“It has really brought our sales down and increased the cost of houses and the general public is complaining.”

“For us as business people, this tax was of great concern to us and so we raised it to the outgoing president. We dialogued for close to two years before we were able to get a cut. Our original expectation was for it to be completely scrapped but much as we tried government insisted that this tax must pass so they went ahead and implemented it,” he recalled.

He however reiterated that the VAT must be removed as soon as possible.

“We are currently working with it but it is not good for us at all. So if the president elect has promised that perhaps they share with us that it should be scrapped then they should just go ahead and do it as early as possible,” he demanded.

Ghana has an estimated housing deficit of more than 1.8 million units.

In 2015, when the tax was imposed, the Executive Secretary of GREDA, Samuel Amegayibor, slammed it, saying it will push the retail prices of houses upward; disqualifying many people from accessing mortgages and ultimately threatening the survival of companies operating in the housing sector.