This paper is a rehash of the existing debate on whether or not the church should be subject to tax. Unlike many others, the paper approaches the issue from a legal perspective and explores the relevant principles of taxation as established by statutes and case law in Ghana. In the main, this paper argues that given that majority of the churches in Ghana engage in transactions which may be properly classified as business, the Commissioner of Income Tax is empowered by law to demand tax from the church in respect of the income accruing therefrom. Thus, using the interpretive paradigm mainly through interviews, observation as well as reliance on statutes and case law, the paper concludes that transactions such as the taking of service fees, sale of anointing oil and other religious products constitute trade and the income arising thereto must be subject to tax.

Several studies have explored the close affinity between religion and food. It is evident from such studies that food plays a ritual role in most world religions. On the social level, food creates group identity and offers reasons for group interaction. Studies have also shown that food preferences are culture-specific. As a result, nearly all societies have rules on what may or may not be consumed. This selection and/or rejection of food substances have been described by many as ‘food taboo’. Nonetheless, the term in its strictest sense may present some conceptual challenges, and thus require some considerable review. This paper reviews the shades of meaning of the concept of ‘food taboo’ and the difficulty it poses in food discourse within the broad spectrum of religion. In the main, the paper provides a functional definition of ‘food taboo’ but proposes a shift in paradigm from merely considering the prohibitions associated with food to an exploration of the guiding principles underlying food conduct which may be termed ‘food ethics.’

The abundance of resources is a blessing, but the price volatility of those resources is a curse (Luciani, 2011). Price variations and its corresponding impact on petroleum revenues is of great importance to industry players. This study adopted a quantitative approach to analyse secondary data collected from multiple sources including Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), Bank of Ghana and not limited to the Ministry of Finance to examine the extent to which crude oil fluctuations influence petroleum revenue collection and allocation in Ghana. The main statistical method employed for this research was regression and descriptive analysis. For robustness check, three post estimations were conducted. These are the Cameron and Trivedi test for heteroskedasticity, Ramsey test for omitted variables, and variance inflation factors (VIF). All three postestimation results showed that the regression estimates are robust. The study finds that at a 1% significance level, the Price of Crude Oil (PCO) and the Petroleum Revenues (PR) are statistically significant. This emphasises the crucial influence of oil prices on petroleum revenues to the state. The study also finds that factors, other than oil price, could to an extent affect petroleum revenues collection and allocation. Such includes allocations to the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA), Ministerial discretions and volumes of crude oil produced and among others. Against these findings, the study recommends that some reforms be made to the PRMA to do away with ministerial discretions on capping the Ghana stabilization fund and also where necessary, consider hedging as a security against unexpected crude oil price falls.

This research analysed traditional healthcare ethics as perceived by the people of Larteh in Ghana. It is an ethnographic research that studied narratives of health care ethics and analysed their contents. The research attempted to extrapolate unique elements of what might be called the Larteh traditional system of health care ethics, showing their significance for health care in public and private health care centres and hospitals in Ghana. Thus using an ethno-medical approach, generally within the scope of Gyekye’s theory of communalism and Bertalanffy’s general systems theory, the paper argued that though some of the ethical ideas contained in the narratives constitute fragments of ethical behaviour among healers, they largely reflected ethics of health care practice known to Western or Orthodox medical practice such as confidentiality, professionalism, limited non-maleficence and paternalism. Nonetheless, other elements could provide important lessons for improving the care of patients in Ghana. The paper concluded that Larteh’s traditional ideas of health care provide ethical principles that not only preserve the dignity of the patient but also teach principles that can contribute to the development of health care generally. The significance of this paper is in its ability to provide a framework for interpreting traditional healthcare ethics. Keywords: Health care, ethics, indigenous knowledge systems, traditional medicine