Ghana’s existing $3 billion Extended Credit Facility (ECF) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is not being extended at this time by my administration, President John Dramani Mahama, disclosed.
He stated that if it becomes necessary, his administration will consider it, but it is not something the government is currently considering.
President Mahama said this in an interview with Bloomberg TV at the Munich Security Conference last Monday.
According to him, the government remains committed to adhering to the existing program.
“We’ve not talked about an extension of the program. We are determined to continue with this program,” he stated. “If it’s necessary to look at additional funds or to extend the program, we’ll look at it, but for now we are determined to continue on this trajectory.”
He also disclosed that his administration has presented some proposals to the IMF during their recent discussions.
He opined that the previous government’s approach of imposing multiple taxes led to diminishing returns.
He said these increased tax burdens resulted in lower revenue collection.
“Because of the target of achieving 24 percent revenue to GDP by 2028, the program required that revenue continue increasing at a certain rate.
“Unfortunately, what the previous government had done was just to slap on more taxes, and we had gotten to a stage where the more taxes that were put on, the less revenue that came in. And so it’s necessary for us to look at the whole tax handle, rationalise them, and make them more transparent and easy to understand so that we can have better compliance.”
He stated that the IMF has agreed to provide technical assistance in streamlining Ghana’s tax system, ensuring efficiency and improved compliance for businesses and individuals.
On the issue of debt restructuring, he said his administration will roll out measures including reactivating the country’s sinking fund to facilitate debt repayments.
“We also have the issue of the debt restructuring and humps that have been created this year; we have to pay in excess of 15 billion (dollars) on the domestic debt exchange,” he noted. “So what we’ve done is reactivate the sinking fund and put more resources into it to take care of the repayments that have to be made this year.”
“We must be more prudent in our handling of our finances; we must also look on the expenditure side and see how we can cut waste and also shift resources to more priority programs,” he stated.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
