By Franklin ASARE-DONKOH
The Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr. Ernest Addison, has appealed to Members of Parliament (MPs) from both sides of the House to speed up the approval of the Revenue Bills to enable Ghana to clinch the three billion dollar International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal.
Addressing the media at a news conference, Dr. Addison stressed that Parliament needs to pass a number of tax laws before the end of April for the IMF Executive Board to consider Ghana for support.
“The official creditors met last week, they are looking at a date in April, by which time they expect to give the necessary financial assurances. And once that is out of the way, once we have signed this Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), once Parliament has passed these new revenue measures, we would have completed what they call the trial action,” he explained.
Dr. Addision further added, “this is what is needed for the fund to set a date for the executive board meeting. So hopefully, if things go as planned, by the end of April, we should see that executive board meeting taking place.”
He thus urged Parliament to prioritise the passage of the three new taxes before it.
The three bills are the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, Excise Duty and Excise Tax Stamp (Amendment) Bill, and the Growth and Sustainability Levy Bill.
The three bills, when passed into law, are expected to generate approximately GH¢ 4 billion per year to supplement domestic revenue.
