President John Dramani Mahama has reemphasised the need for Ghana to be prudent in managing its finances amid its bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Cutting of wasteful expenditure and refocusing resources, according to the President, is the surest way for Ghana to avoid overburdening its citizens with more taxes.
The President had earlier indicated that the government has not had a discussion with the Fund on extending the IMF programme, whilst assuring the his commitment to continue with the current facility.
Officials of the IMF last week met the new Finance Minister to commence discussions on ensuring compliance with the Brett on Wood Institution’s agreements.
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference Sunday, February 16, 2025, President Mahama bemoaned the imposition of more taxes on the citizens by the previous government, highlighting his intention to take a second look at the entire tax regime and rationalise it for transparency and compliance.
“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.
“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 explained.
