ActionAid Ghana, a non-governmental organisation, has appealed to the government to practice gender budgeting in ways that promote gender equality.
The global justice organisation working to achieve social justice, gender equality and poverty eradication has also called for tax reform laws that would not discriminate against women but to ensure that they had an equal say in how public money was spent.
Madam Margaret Brew-Ward, the Policy and Advocacy Manager for ActionAid Ghana who made the call on Wednesday to mark International Women’s Day, said ActionAid Ghana was currently embarking on a campaign to promote and stimulate public support for the need to recognise, reduce and redistribute women’s unpaid care work globally.
“We have joined this campaign because the rights of women and girls around the world are being threatened by discriminatory global, regional and national tax policies.
“In our country, current laws and practices enable multinational corporations and the very rich to, in many cases, get away with not paying their fair share of taxes.
“This denies government budget of a key source of funding for public services, such as healthcare, education and clean water, which is critical to realising women’s rights and gender equality,” she said.
Madam Brew-Ward noted that ActionAid Ghana joined the Global Alliance for Tax Justice and partner organisations in countries around the world taking part in the #TaxJustice for Women’s Rights Global Days of Action, slated for March 8 – 24, to ensure that national and regional tax and financial secrecy policies did not contribute to large-scale tax abuse in other countries or are biased towards wealthy countries, corporations and the wealthy elite.
“This campaign starts on International Women’s Day (March 8) and continues through to the end of the annual UN Commission on the Status of Women intergovernmental meeting,” she said.
Madam Brew-Ward noted that globally, tax avoidance and tax breaks to big businesses cost developing countries hundreds of billions of US dollars every year and that could go a long way to transforming the lives of women and girls around the world.
“Every year, Ghana loses $2.27Billion in tax incentives granted to multinational companies who invest in the country. These monies could have been used to fund public services such as the establishment of pre-school facilities to reduce the burden of child care and create opportunities for women in rural and urban areas to participate in economic activities,” she said.
She therefore urged government to maximise available resources to invest in quality, gender-responsive public services, the care economy, and social protection as well as carry out tax impact assessments especially impact on the poorest women.
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