Upper West Region: Residents Of Wuru Vow Never To Pay Tax

The residents of Wuru Community, located in the Sissila East Community in the Upper West Region, have pleaded with the government to bring advancements to the area so they may pay taxes to the proper authorities and eat their fair share of the national cake.

People in the neighbourhood claimed that they felt shut off from the rest of the nation and that this had prevented them from receiving fundamental advancements to make sure that the nation's cake served the community well.

There are no highways connecting Wuru to other Ghanaian settlements where we may conduct business, according to Mr Harduna Atiah, a trader and manager of the Wuru community market.

There are no public transit systems, dependable communication networks, healthcare facilities, inadequate educational facilities, and farming technologies.

He said that while they had previously paid taxes to the Tumu Municipal Assembly, they had to cease doing so since they no longer felt a need to do so.

"Currently, we have decided not to pay tax. Our taxes cannot be used to develop other areas while we suffer", he said.

Members of the community, according to Mr Atiah, are in "prison" and he urged practical steps to be taken to reunite them with the rest of the nation.

It may take three hours to ride a motorcycle to the village, which is located around 70 kilometres from Tumu.

The CHPS site, which is used for immunizations and has just one male nurse stationed there, lacks adequate housing, power for medicine storage, and a dependable source of drinking water.

Only motorbikes can get there due to the poor condition of the road, forcing the population to conduct commerce with neighbouring Burkina Faso and thereby rejecting the Ghana cedi as a means of exchange.

Many Burkinabes who conducted business in the area did not pay taxes as well.

The absence of an access road prevented the Assembly from collecting taxes from the locality, according to Mr Fuseini Batong Yakubu, the MCE for Sissalla East.

He said that the Assembly had plans to build a permanent tax collectors' shack at the market.

He clarified that Burkinabe business people are required to pay income tax.

Mr Yakubu said that he had also asked the Wuru chief to assist in counting and reporting the number of foreigners moving into the region.