FISCAL ALERTS
January 9, 2019
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 […]
November 19, 2018
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 […]
October 16, 2018
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, […]
August 5, 2018
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 […]
May 8, 2018
Fiscal Alert 12: Ghana’s Economic Development: Past, Present and the Future. After a successful implementation of an unprecedented program of economic recovery over a decade, perceived by the international community as an example of adjustment with growth and a model for the rest of Africa, Ghana held its first multi-party elections in 1992, taking a decisive step to return to multi-party democratic rule. This paper focuses on Ghana’s economic development since the return to multi-party democracy in 1993. It starts with a review of economic management during the transition period (1992) to provide the context for the move to multi-party […]
March 12, 2018
Fiscal Alert 11: Ghana’s Growing Public Debt and Its Implications for the Economy Rising public expenditures in the context of persistently weak revenue performance have undermined Ghana’s fiscal and debt sustainability in recent years. As the coun- try’s fiscal risks remained high, credible fiscal consolidation was required to reverse the unfavorable debt dynamics and reduce domestic refinancing risks. The fiscal management strategy of the new government that came into office in January 2017 aims at restoring fiscal discipline, reversing the fiscal deterioration it inherited and putting the public debt on a downward and sustainable path. Unfortunately, it does not appear that […]