TIG Post

Tag: Wuru community

  • Wuru residents vow never to pay tax

    The people of Wuru Community in the Sissila East Community of the Upper West Region have appealed to the government to bring developments to the community to enable them to pay taxes to the appropriate authority to enjoy their portion of the national cake.

    According to the people, the community felt cut off from the rest of the country and that had deprived them of basic developments. to ensure that the community benefitted from the national cake.

    Mr Harduna Atiah, a business man and caretaker of the Wuru community market told the Ghana News Agency that, “There are no roads to link Wuru to other Ghanaian communities where we can transact business. No transportation, no reliable communication network, no health facilities, poor educational infrastructure and no means of modern technology for farming.”

    He said they used to pay tax to the Tumu Municipal Assembly but for some time now, they had to stop because they saw no reason for the payment.

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

    Mr Atiah said members of the community were in “prison” and asked for pragmatic efforts to be made to integrate them with the rest of the country.

    The GNA traveled to the Wuru community to find out their problems and to report same for government to consider supporting them.

    The community is about 70 kilometres from Tumu, which took the GNA three hours to travel to the community on a motorbike.

    The community has a CHPS compound with only one male nurse stationed there with no decent accommodation, no electricity to store drugs, meant for immunization and no reliable source of drinking water.

    Due to the poor nature of the road, only motorbikes can travel there, which compelled the community to transact business with neighbouring Burkina Faso thereby, rejecting the Ghana cedi as medium of exchange.

    The GNA observed that the many Burkinabes who transacted business in the community did not also pay tax.

    Mr Fuseini Batong Yakubu, the Sissalla East MCE said the Assembly had not been able to collect tax from the community due to the lack of access road.

    He said the Assembly was planning to erect a permanent tax collection shed at the market for the tax collectors.

    “I have also met with the chief and the secretary of the Bujan Area Council to hold meetings with the people to see the need to pay market tolls as that would help us to use the IGF to undertake development in the area. The business persons coming from Burkina Faso are supposed to pay income tax”, he explained.

    Mr Yakubu said he had also appealed to the chief of Wuru to help in identifying and registering the number of aliens settling in the area.

    Source: GNA

  • Wuru residents 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 developments to the area so they can pay taxes to the proper authorities and eat their fair share of the national cake.

    People in the neighborhood claimed that they felt cut off from the rest of the nation and that this had prevented them from receiving fundamental advancements.
    to make certain that the nation’s cake served the community well.

    Mr Harduna Atiah, a business man and caretaker of the Wuru community market told the Ghana News Agency that, “There are no roads to link Wuru to other Ghanaian communities where we can transact business. No transportation, no reliable communication network, no health facilities, poor educational infrastructure and no means of modern technology for farming.”

    He said they used to pay tax to the Tumu Municipal Assembly but for some time now, they had to stop because they saw no reason for the payment.

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

    Mr Atiah said members of the community were in “prison” and asked for pragmatic efforts to be made to integrate them with the rest of the country.

    The GNA traveled to the Wuru community to find out their problems and to report same for government to consider supporting them.

    The community is about 70 kilometres from Tumu, which took the GNA three hours to travel to the community on a motorbike.

    The community has a CHPS compound with only one male nurse stationed there with no decent accommodation, no electricity to store drugs, meant for immunization and no reliable source of drinking water.

    Due to the poor nature of the road, only motorbikes can travel there, which compelled the community to transact business with neighbouring Burkina Faso thereby, rejecting the Ghana cedi as medium of exchange.

    The GNA observed that the many Burkinabes who transacted business in the community did not also pay tax.

    Mr Fuseini Batong Yakubu, the Sissalla East MCE said the Assembly had not been able to collect tax from the community due to the lack of access road.

    He said the Assembly was planning to erect a permanent tax collection shed at the market for the tax collectors.

    “I have also met with the chief and the secretary of the Bujan Area Council to hold meetings with the people to see the need to pay market tolls as that would help us to use the IGF to undertake development in the area. The business persons coming from Burkina Faso are supposed to pay income tax”, he explained.

    Mr Yakubu said he had also appealed to the chief of Wuru to help in identifying and registering the number of aliens settling in the area.

  • Wuru community rejects Ghana cedis

    The people of Wuru, a deprived community in the Sissala East Municipality of the Upper West Region are not using the Ghana Cedis, the official currency of Ghana as its medium of exchange due to depreciation of the Ghana Cedi and other compelling factors.

    The only way they accept the cedi as medium of exchange or legal tender is to receive the money in CFA equivalent when selling their products.

    The community, with a population of more than 3,000, transacts business with neighbouring Burkina-Faso and accepts the CFA as the legal tender for convenience.

    They trade in livestock, cereals and sheanut as well as fowls.

    Maize, millet, and sesame are the major crops produced in the area.

    Wurupio Mahama Bataachia Dawuri IV, the chief of the area speaking to the GNA, said there was nothing wrong with spending a foreign currency in the area since they do not recognize themselves as Ghanaians because they have been neglected, and do not benefit from government projects.

    He attributed the problem to among other things, poor road infrastructure, depreciation of the Ghana cedi and increases in prices of petroleum products as well as Burkinabes being their only business partners.

    Some people making payment with the CFA in the Wuru market.  

    The community, about 70 kilometres from Tumu borders Burkina-Faso and speaks only Kassem, the language of Navrongo and other Kassena Nankana communities of the Upper East Region.

    It took the GNA more than three hours on a motorbike from Tumu to the community due to the deplorable nature of the road, which a vehicle cannot access.

    The GNA visited the Sissala East Municipality to see problems facing the people and to report on them for assistance by state actors.

    Wurupio Dawuri explained that the Ghana Cedi and the CFA were spent concurrently, but that the people stopped accepting the Ghanaian currency due to depreciation and high fuel prices.

    The chief said the Wuru community is only remembered during elections, where politicians come to “deceive” them for their votes.

    He said: “We consider ourselves as being in a neutral zone. We do not know whether we belong to Ghana or Burkina-Faso because nobody cares about us,” and that they appealed for support over the years that were ignored.

    He explained that they have been compelled by circumstances to ignore the Ghana Cedi since they could not convey their produce to any of the Ghanaian communities for sale because of lack of roads and transportation.

    “People come here to tell us that it is illegal for us to spend the CFA other than the cedis. We also tell them it is not our fault because the only way for us to survive is to accept the CFA since all the goods come from Burkina-Faso,” he said.

    He expressed concern about the inability of the National Identification Authority (NIA) to register and get the Ghana Card for them due to lack of network service in the area for registration.

    Wurupio Dawuri said it was important for the government to ensure that the Wuru community gets good roads to be linked to the rest of Ghana to ensure the people belong to Ghana and to enjoy the national cake.

    He also appealed for water, communication network and security in the area since they cannot defend themselves from terrorists’ attacks.

    Mr. Yakubu Fuseini Batong, the Sissala East Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) said the Tumu-Kunchokor-Wuru road had been awarded and that construction would soon start.

    He said efforts were being made to construct and repair broken bridges on the Wuru road.

    Source:  GNA