Campaign to exempt kayayei from paying tolls initiated

The Pamela Bridgewater Project has started a campaign aimed at compelling metropolitan, municipal and district assembly (MMDAs) authorities to exempt head porters, popularly refered to as ‘Kayayei, from paying tax.

The campaign is to pressure city mayors and other policy makers to consider the current practice of asking the head porters to pay daily tolls for carrying goods.

The Pamela Bridgewater Project, which has received the endorsement of former presidents John Rawlings and John Agyekum Kufuor, campaigns for a better future for the Kayayei through education, advocacy, awareness creation, research and the protection of their fundamental human rights.

The Project Director of the Pamela Bridgewater Project, Mr Yahaya Alhassan, said in an interview that the head porters were vulnerable groups, which qualifies them to be exempted from the payment of taxes and other tolls to the state.

He added: “Our leaders face a historic moral duty by publicly announcing tax exemption for kayayei. What is more worrying is the inhumane way of forcing the girls to pay the tolls by the ‘Abayei’ men of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly.”

According to him, a survey conducted in Greater Accra and Ashanti regions by the Kunata Voluntary Organisation (KVO) - the parent company of the Bridgewater Project- indicated that about 95 per cent of Ghanaians were unaware that head porters paid taxes to the state.

Most people in the survey, he said, were also surprised by the revelation that the tax authorities main targets were the kayayei.