President John Dramani Mahama has said his administration has not engaged the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on extending Ghana’s current US$3 billion Extended Credit Facility (ECF).
According to him, the government is considering rationalising the tax system for more compliance, a discussion he says they have had with the IMF which the latter has agreed to provide technical assistance for.
Officials of the IMF last week met the new Finance Minister to commence discussions on ensuring compliance with the Bretton Wood Institution’s agreements.
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference Sunday, February 16, 2025, President Mahama said while future extensions remain an option, government is presently committed to adhering to the existing programme.
“Because of the target of achieving 24 percent revenue to GDP by 2028, the program required that revenue should continue increasing at a certain rate.
“Unfortunately, what the previous government had done was just to slap on more taxes and we had got into a stage where the more taxes that were put on, the less revenue that came in. And so it’s necessary for us to look at the whole tax handle, rationalize them, make them more transparent, easy to understand, so that we can have better compliance.
“We’ve had that discussion with the IMF and the IMF have agreed to provide technical assistance for us to do that rationalization. We’ve not talked about an extension of the program. We are determined to continue with this program,” he explained.
The President further reemphasised the need for Ghana to be prudent in its finances and cut expenditure to refocus resources into more priority areas.
“I think that it means that we must be more prudent in our handling of our finances. We must also look on the expenditure side and see how we can cut waste and also shift resources to more priority programs. And so it’s a whole basket that we are looking at,” he added.
Mahama calls for African self-reliance in financing development
