Government Needs New Taxes To Raise Revenue – Deputy Finance Minister

John Kumah, a Deputy Finance Minister has disclosed that it is important for the government to close its fiscal deficit gap.

He said this will be done with an efficient tax regime by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.

Speaking in an interview on Citi TV ahead of the 2022 budget, he said Ghanaians should expect some new taxes.

“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”, he stated.

The Minister further explained that the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the global economy to its knees and that, developing countries such as Ghana ought to strategize in consolidating gains to bring its economy back on track.

“COVID-19 has really brought changes to the economic paradigm of the world, and any strategic budget must factor into the past COIVD-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”, the Minister added.

The government’s Budget Statement and Economic Policy for the year 2022 is expected to be presented in parliament today, Wednesday, November 17, 2021, by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.

This will be the sixth budget of the Akufo-Addo administration, in accordance with Article 179 of the 1992 constitution.