WA, April 17, GNA- Tailors and Dressmakers in the Wa Municipality have been asked to see the voluntary payment of taxes as their social responsibility and contribution to national development. Alhaji Issah Yahaya, Upper West Regional Chairman of the Tailors and Dressmakers Association, who gave the advice, said their quest for loans and other facilities for their trade would not be achieved, if they used every available loophole to dodge the payment of taxes. He said the credits they yearn for from the public system often came from the tax people and corporate organisations pay to government. He was speaking at a passing out ceremony organised by the Wa branch of the Association for 92 tailors and dressmakers who had completed their apprenticeship.

He appealed to the authorities in the region to assist the newly trained tailors and dressmakers to acquire sewing machines and access the Micro Credits and Small Loan Scheme to start their businesses. Mr Clement Eledi, Deputy Minster of Food and Agriculture, told the newly trained dressmakers that since they were now going into business they must at all times treat their customers with respect and meet their demands timely.

He commended the association for their contribution towards the unemployment problem in the country, which he said would curtail social vices that go with it.

In an address read on his behalf, Mr Ambrose Dery, Upper West Regional Minster told them to explore new ways of designing their products for greater domestic patronage and also modernise their creative works to attract international customers. Every Ghanaian should see himself as a critical factor, in pushing the economy forward, to enable the nation to achieve a middle level income status by 2015, he said. 17 April 07