Govt needs creative revenue measures — Oppong Nkrumah

The Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has indicated that as part of the post COVID-19 economic recovery efforts, the government will pursue creative revenue mobilisation measures to fund projects it intends to undertake as part of the post COVID-19 economic recovery efforts.

Speaking to journalists in Accra yesterday ahead of the Budget Statement and Economic Policy which will be presented on the floor of Parliament tomorrow, the  minister, who is also the New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Ofoase Ayirebi, said it was essential that the government increased its revenue streams in order to finance projects.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah said the government needed to be creative with its revenue mobilisation measures to enable it to underwrite policies and programmes for the 2021 fiscal year. 

“As the President outlined in his address to the nation, we made great gains in our economy between 2017 and 2019. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 has dealt a very big blow to the economy and has gravely hampered growth.

“The consequence is that our debt situation has gotten worse and the COVID-19 is a significant reason,” he said.

Revenue measures

The information minister said, under the circumstances, the government would over the next four years gradually start “what economists call fiscal consolidation by trying to reduce the debt burden.”

He explained that the situation would require that the government worked to raise some more revenues to fund some of its debts and already existing expenditure as well as ensure that the ever-growing needs of the people were attended to. 

“So as we are getting ready for the budget, now is a good time to have a conversation around fiscal measures or revenue measures. What can we do to be more efficient in raising revenue from some of the old revenue measures? Are there new revenue measure that we can consider,” he added.

Economy in 4 years

The economy was on a rise between 2017 and 2020 and recorded improvements in various areas such as growth in Gross Domestic Products (GDP), microeconomic stability, single digit inflation and stability of the cedi.

However, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic dealt the Ghanaian economy a blow and eroded the gains it had chalked up.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah called for all hands to be on deck if the country was to surge forward from the COVID-19 induced setback.

He said the country required relevant stakeholders to bond together on measures to increase revenue to help put the country back into its previous state before the COVID-19 hit the country.