We are confident of meeting IMF conditions for fiscal consolidation – Finance Minister

Government has stated that it is certain of meeting the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) requirements for fiscal consolidation in its quest to ensure economic recovery.

The IMF, in its report on Ghana’s request for a $3 billion dollar extended credit facility, attributed Ghana’s economic challenges to weak domestic revenue mobilization efforts.

The Fund also said tax policy design suffers from widespread tax expenditures, especially in VAT, and underexploited taxes such as property tax and excise.

Also, weaknesses in revenue administration continue to be reflected in limited compliance and recoveries.

Speaking at the Capital Market Day’s event organized by the MTN Group in South Africa, Ken Ofori-Atta said, government is in the position to meet all the IMF’s targets.

“When we came into government, we inherited an IMF program which was supposed to take almost three to four years and within two years we exited that. So, our capacity to do that is very clear to us.

In terms of the confidence to be able to follow through with the IMF, the post-COVID programme for economic growth is our programme in which the Fund’s structural bench mark were around that. We believe that we can do it because we have done it before. And the numbers in 2017 to 2020 suggest the type of trajectory we were on until these incidents occurred. We are confident about what we have to do within these 18 months,” he said.

Ken Ofori-Atta also revealed that government has made some progress with workers on management of their pension funds.

Source: citinewsroom