Given the rising demand for public services, the deputy finance minister, John Kumah, has stated that taxes will be implemented to allow the government raise sufficient revenue for various development projects.
The deputy minister believes that, because the government needs to close its fiscal deficit gap, industry players’ and businesses’ expectations for a reduction or complete abolition of taxes and levies must be measured.
“Obviously, if people are expecting the government to spend on their needs, they should be expecting the government to raise revenue for that expenditure. So, obviously there will be some progressive measures to ensure that, that revenue is raised”.
John Kumah
The Minister noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the global economy to its knees, and that developing nations like Ghana must develop strategies on how to consolidate gains in order to get their economies back on track.
Mr. Kumah pointed out that the policies that would be introduced in the budget would not be too burdensome on the people but rather to expedite the economy’s recovery and expansion.
The budget to be full of good news
“COVID-19 has really brought changes to the economic paradigm of the world, and any strategic budget must factor into the past COVID-19 interventions that we need to do to revive the economy. But there will be a lot of good news. We will signal clearly that government has to do a lot of fiscal consolidation for government to come back to the fiscal responsibility threshold of 5 percent by 2024 or before.”
“There is an already general difficult climate globally, because of COVID-19 and so the government is aware of this. So, even though we seek to bring measures, it will be one that will not bring too much on people, but rather seeing to expand the economy and increase productivity”
John Kumah
The government has already been advised not to propose new taxes in the fiscal year 2022 budget, but John Kumah believes that any additional tax will boost the economy. He equally promised Ghanaians that no nuisance taxes would be imposed.
“We still believe that nuisance taxes are a lazy approach to raise revenue, so we have scrapped a number of them. But every tax we have introduced is aimed at production and how we can make productivity grow. We are still going to maintain that focus, but I can assure you that, there will not be any nuisance taxes.”
John Kumah
Finance minister presents budget today
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, is expected to submit the government’s Budget Statement and Economic Policy for the year 2022 in parliament today, Wednesday, November 17, 2021.
In accordance with Article 179 of the 1992 constitution, this will be the administration’s sixth budget. With bated breath, many people await the presentation of the 2022 budget.
The business community and other stakeholders have presented their views on what they expect the budget to focus on over the last few weeks.
Several requests have already been made on the government, including demands for a rescue package for unhappy Menzgold consumers in the budget.
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