Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has revealed that government will withdraw its share of the $1billion SDR from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to fast-track the ongoing recovery in the economy.

According to the him, government will target some critical areas that will help speed up the recovery process.

Mr Ofori-Atta hinted that government is looking at directing the funds to sectors that will aid job creation as well as some areas under the Ghana Cares Program.

The $1billion is part of the IMF’s additional Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocated to its 190 member countries. The amount is expected to be used to support the country’s economic recovery efforts. The SDR can also be used by member countries to purchase vaccines which is critical to the global recovery.

IMF approves $650 billion in SDRs

The IMF Board earlier this month, approved $650 billion to support member-countries in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. Member-countries were expected to have their accounts credited with their share of the $650 billion from August 23, 2021.

The IMF Managing Director, Ms. Kristalina Georgieva, announced in a statement yesterday that the SDR were ready to be disbursed to member countries. She, however, urged member countries to ensure the judicious use of the Rights to combat the unprecedented crisis.

According to the IMF, this move would ensure that its members, including Ghana, have a strong external position to voluntarily channel part of their SDRs to scale up lending.

Meanwhile, there were initial reports that Ghana may not be able to withdraw the funds because of some debt obligations to the IMF. But Government assured that the challenge had been dealt with, hence, there is no need for concerns.

Already, some analysts have argued that the funds hitting Bank of Ghana’s accounts, may also help in improving Ghana’s reserves. This, as such, has the potential of stabilizing the Ghana cedis.

Revenue mobilization

Also, Government is looking at programs that are aimed at improving revenue mobilization in these times and also digitalization of the economy.

The Finance Minister is optimistic about Ghana’s Revenue situation improving in the coming months. This is based on ongoing reforms and some projects that the Ghana Revenue Authority is currently undertaking.

Ken Ofori-Atta is also banking his hopes on the decision to replace the Tax Identification Numbers with the Ghana Card. This, he said, “will allow the Revenue Authorities to better identify activities of individuals in relation to their tax obligations activities”. This, he believes, will help assess the tax obligations of these persons.

Furthermore, the Minister stated that the government is looking forward to the Ghana.gov portal to also help improve Ghana’s revenue mobilization going forward.

“So far, more than $20 billion has passed through this platform since last year, and we believe that things will get better”.
Ken Ofori-Atta

Mr. Ofori-Atta expects the application of technology in revenue mobilization to address the challenge of low revenues in the country in no time. He also expressed hope that Ghana will improve its tax to GDP ratio through these revenue initiatives.

“Ghana is currently doing about a tax to GDP ratio of 13 percent that is far lower than the regional average of 19 percent. But we are optimistic of things getting better going forward”.
Ken Ofori-Atta