Payment of taxes by Ghana private universities is worrying – Prof. Adei

 

The Former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Prof. Stephen Adei, has expressed concern over the payment of corporate taxes by private universities in the country.

While admitting that some of the private universities are limited liability companies with shareholders receiving profit, he contended that a significant number of them were church-based and not-for-profit.

“To tax these institutions is tantamount to a complete misunderstanding of what is good for Ghana and the contributions these institutions are making to national effort,” he said, during the 11th congregation of the Methodist University College Ghana (MUCG), in Accra last Saturday.

About 1,354 students graduated from the post-graduate and undergraduate levels, with some being certificate holders.

He said it appeared public policy and actions systematically discriminated against private educational institutions instead of promoting a healthy partnership between the state and such private institutions.

Prof. Adei also stressed the need to facilitate the process for private universities to be able to operate as autonomous bodies, saying most of them had the best of facilities and infrastructure to provide the best for students in Ghana and beyond.

Prof. Adei spoke about the important role of private universities in the educational sector and stressed that the presence of those institutions in the country was a sign that education was a shared responsibility between the private and public sector, with students and guardians being critical stakeholders.

He said there was the need for a competitive national scholarship scheme for brilliant but needy students who wished to study in either a private or public university.

He also said polytechnics should be supported to become technical institutions and be discouraged from becoming institutions for training students in the traditional social science and humanities, noting that they should be adequately funded to do the technology-centred programmes.

In a speech read on her behalf, the Minister of Education, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, reiterated the government’s commitment to ensure that a congenial atmosphere was created for private universities to operate and said the government had made available funding for research to be accessed by students in the private educational institutions.

She charged the graduands to be good ambassadors of the school and the nation at large.

For more news go to: