Payments At Government Agencies To Go Up As Parliament Passes Fees and Charges Bill

Parliament has passed the Fees and Charges (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 2022, to provide for an annual adjustment of fees being charged by public institutions.

The Bill forms part of revenue measures outlined in the 2022 budget and will give a legal backing to the request for a 15% upward adjustment of government fees and charges.

When assented to by the President, the new Act will review existing fees and impose new ones in line with prevailing economic conditions in the country.

It replaces the Fees and Charges (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2018 (Act 983), which gave the Finance Minister the authority to determine fees and charges under an enactment.

The amended Act would raise fees and charges by at least 15%.

At the second reading of the Bill, a Deputy Finance Minister, Abena Osei Asare, noted that the increments would ensure the cost of fees and charges keep up with trends in pricing.

According to the Finance Committee of Parliament’s report, a number of government agencies failed to lodge revenues collected in gross contravention of Section 46 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921).

“Again, some institutions also collect revenues on the table or over the counter after which it is lodged into their operational accounts and disbursed directly in contravention of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016. 

“The Committee noted with concern that the practice does not give the Minister of Finance a complete or comprehensive view of the total revenue generated by all state agencies in each fiscal year,” the Chairman of the Committee, Kwaku Kwarteng, said during the motion for the third reading.

“The Committee, therefore, recommends that the Ministry of Finance should take immediate steps to ensure that all institutions captured in the Second Schedule of the Bill collect their revenues through a designated commercial bank or through the Ghana.gov platform from which the funds collected are transferred in gross into the respective holding accounts at Bank of Ghana.”

Source: myjoyonline