Project Coordinator for Days for Girls Ghana, Stephen Koranteng, says the organisation is optimistic the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Sarah Adwoa Safo, will ensure the removal of the 20% luxury tax on sanitary pads to make pads affordable and promote menstrual hygiene among women.
According to Mr. Koranteng, taxing people for having their periods without the resource to carter for it means endangering the lives of women.
In a solidarity message on the commemoration of the 2021 Menstrual Hygiene Management Day, the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Sarah Adwoa Safo, pledged to take necessary steps to address the tax on imported sanitary items.
“The needs of young girls are of utmost concern to me as a Minister and reducing the stigma around menstrual hygiene management is one that I take very seriously and that is why upon my assumption to office, I have written to the Ministry of Finance for a direct follow up on the removal of the luxury tax on the import of sanitary items,” she stated.
“Given the challenges that women and girls face, it is important to promote Menstrual Hygiene Management towards safeguarding the dignity and integrity of women and girls to positively contribute to improved school performance,” Adwoa Safo added.
Speaking to Francisca Kakra Forson on Inside Pages, Saturday, the Project Coordinator for Girls for Days Ghana, Stephen Koranteng, was hopeful the minister would scrape the levy on sanitary pads to reduce the cost of imported sanitary pads making it affordable for Ghanaian women.
“We want to believe because she’s our minister and she stated categorically that she’s following up on the issue of having the tax [on sanitary pad] removed, so, we’re hoping that next year 28 May we will go back to the Nat Conference Hall with the intention of going to celebrate the removal of the 20% sanitary pad tax,” she said on Metro TV Saturday.
Mr. Koranteng ruled out the possibility the pledge by the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection would be a nine-day wonder urging Madam Adwoa Safo to be true to her word.
“This one we don’t want to hear it is in the pipeline. No. Or it is in the process. All that we want to see is clapping saying that the work that we did, something ago, yielded a positive result,” he averred.
By: Bernard Ralph Adams |Metrotvonline.com | Ghana
