Ghana should expand tax net, use revenues prudently – Panelists

Panelists at the launch of the World Bank Group latest flagship report, World Development Report (WDR) 2024, have called for innovation, prudent use of the country’s tax revenues and expansion of the tax net to rope in more revenue for the gov­ernment to accelerate the growth of the country.

Also, the panelists stressed the need for initiating programmes and measures to encourage savings, the protection of strategic sectors of the economy, investment of public revenues in projects with high returns in order to reduce govern­ment borrowing and curbing illicit financial flows.

The panelists are; First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Maxwell Opoku-Afari, the Di­rector of the Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research of the University of Ghana, Professor Peter Quartey, the UN Resident Coordinator, Charles Abani, the President and Chief Executive Of­ficer of African Centre Economic Transformation, Ms Mavis Owu­su-Gyamfi, and the Swiss Ambas­sador to Ghana, Simone Giger.

The WDR titled; ‘Middle-In­come Trap,’ outlines growth strategies to help Middle-Income Economies (MIE) to escape debt traps and emphasised investment, infusion and innovation to propel the growth of MIEs.

Dr Opoku-Afari stated that the government needed to invest more in innovation and infusion to pro­mote the economic transformation of the country.

He stressed that tax revenues should be expended well to gener­ate better returns.

“Government spending must be targeted at structural trans­formation of the economy,” Dr Opoku-Afari stated, adding that there was the need to increase the tax net to increase government tax revenue.

He said the savings culture in the country was low, and savings must be encouraged, particularly for the middle class and high net worth individuals, to help the private sector raise capital to help expand the economy.

Prof. Quartey noted that pro­viding capital for the private sector was not enough to boost the econ­omy and spurt economic growth.

Moreover, he said government needed to handpick and support specific sectors of the economy to produce the needs of the country locally to boost Ghana’s export and reduce imports.

That, Prof Quartey indicated, would help improve the coun­try’s exchange earnings to reduce government borrowing and help strengthen the local currency.

Mr Abani said, the World Bank needed to support the country and introduce measures to curb illicit flows.

According to him, illicit finan­cial flows was denying Ghana the needed funds to develop the country, saying the monies Ghana lost to illicit financial flows were more than the $3 billion, which the government was accessing from the International Monetary Fund.

Ms Owusu-Gyamfi mentioned that investment innovation was one of the surest way to promote the country’s economic transfor­mation and development as well as generate the needed decent jobs for the youth.

She outlined that since Ghana attained a MIC in 2010, the coun­try’s economic transformation had been retrogressing and called for increased investment in innovation and infusing technology to create jobs for the youth.

Ms Giger also added that the country needed to do more to help the MIC status reflected the coun­try’s economic development.

She said there was more to do to improve public infrastructure and sanitation and the country.

 BY KINGSLEY ASARE