Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin has registered his displeasure with the Akufo-Addo administration for maintaining the luxury taxes on sanitary pads in the 2023 Mid-Year Budget Review.

There were growing calls for the taxes on sanitary pads to be scrapped. Bagbin joined and urged the government to withdraw the taxes in the mid-year budget review.

However, reading the 2023 Mid-Year Budget Review in Parliament on Monday, July 31, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta was silent on it.

This has not gone well with the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin.

When the Member of Parliament for Sefwi Akontombra, Alex Tetteh Djornobuah, sought to defend the implementation of the taxes, Alban Bagbin replied on the floor of Parliament.The Speaker called on the government and future governments to scrap taxes on sanitary pads.

“On the issue of sanitary pads, the government should rethink about it. Because the taxes are not only imported ones, even the locally produced ones are taxed. The businesses met me two days ago, [and told me that] even the raw materials are taxed.”

“They were complaining about production, to the extent that some of them folded up. This is something that I take seriously. Don’t let us miss the point, I will not tax a woman, my mother for producing me. I don’t support that at all, so the state must take this matter seriously.”

“There are countries where it is for free, there are countries where a lot of taxes have been removed. That is an issue I’m very passionate about, to all governments that will come, we can do without it. How much do we make from this taxation? We like taxing the poor, we are not taxing the rich”.