An Economist, Dr. Adu Sarkodie, has said the government can raise an extra GH¢50 billion in the short to medium term by employing certain measures.
According to him, various sectors in the economy can be leveraged to generate revenue.
He noted that the government must relieve the burden on overtaxed sectors and focus on sectors that have potential but are struggling.
He spoke to GhanaWeb Business in parliament ahead of the presentation of the 2024 by the Minister of Finance.
“We can increase our royalties to 10% and we can rake in an average of GH¢8 billion cedis. I have made a proposal and I think most economists agree with me. Number 1 is tax exemptions, we are giving too many tax exemptions and the cost of tax exemptions is about 1.5% of GDP, amounting to about 13 billion.
“Government can raise some money from there. The tax from the income of the informal sector amounts to about 1% of GDP that’s about 8 billion. We can get some Property tax is about 2% of GDP, that is giving us about 18billion. Put all this together and you get about 50 billion that can be realized in the short to medium term,” he said.
SSD/NOQ