August 5, 2018

Mid-Year Review of the 2018 Budget Statement & Economic Policy

FiscalAlert 13: Mid-Year Review of the 2018 Budget Statement & Economic Policy On July 19, 2018, the Minister of Finance presented to Parliament the Government’s Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review of the 2018 Budget Statement and Economic Policy. According to the Minister of Finance, the overarching goal of government’s macro-fiscal policy is to deepen macroeconomic stability, grow the productive sectors of the economy, create jobs and ultimately move the economy beyond aid. Consequently, the government’s fiscal policy has been designed to reduce the fiscal deficit to ensure debt sustainability without compromising growth. It has also been designed to be growth-friendly, reformative […]
October 16, 2018

An Assessment of the Proposed US$50 Billion Century Bond for Ghana

Fiscal Alert 14: An Assessment of the Proposed US$50 Billion Century Bond for Ghana The Minister of Finance has disclosed that the 2019 Budget will announce the issuing of a US$50 billion century bond that will provide resources to help address major challenges confronting the country, including the cedi depreciation, infrastructural deficit, and low industrial development. A successful century bond will make everybody comfortable about the future of the country’s needs for both infrastructure and foreign exchange so that we have a lot more stability. According to the Minister, the bond will be raised in bits through a shelf offering, […]
November 19, 2018

The 2018 Fiscal Policy Objectives and Targets: What has changed?

Fiscal Alert 15: The 2018 Fiscal Policy Objectives and Targets: What has changed? Ghana has been facing fiscal difficulties since 2012 and the effects were at the forefront of the fiscal challenges that confronted the NPP government that came into office in 2017. For most of the past six years, large persistent fiscal deficits and a rising debt burden have posed an increasingly serious policy challenge for the country. The implementation of the single spine salary structure for the public sector in 2010, coupled with a sharp rise in energy-subsidy costs and fiscal transfers, rapidly increased public spending. Consequently, the […]
January 9, 2019

Enhancing Revenue Mobilization in Ghana through Tax Compliances

Fiscal Alert 16: Enhancing Revenue Mobilization in Ghana through Tax Compliance. Ghana’s tax/GDP (rebased) ratio currently sits below 13%. Not only is the country’s tax revenue as a share of GDP low in absolute terms, but it is also very low as a share of GDP relative to those of its African peers, pointing to the need to significantly increase tax revenue. Developing mechanisms to improve tax revenue has, however, become challenging on at least two fronts: (i) lack of good data on tax compliance; and (ii) difficulty in finding effective instruments for improving compliance, given the institutional constraints. One […]