Ghanaians must be ready to pay more taxes - Osei-Asare

Ghanaians must be prepared to pay more taxes as the government seeks to embark on an aggressive domestic revenue mobilization drive to mitigate the negative impact of coronavirus on the economy, the Minister-designate of Finance Abena Osei-Asare has revealed.

According to the deputy Minister-designate, the government seeks to introduce several tax policies between 2021 to 2023 aimed at raising the needed resources to bridge the deficit created by the impact of coronavirus.

Osei-Asare said the government is aggressively working to increase the country’s GDP from 13% to 20% by 2023 as being done by countries within the sub-region.

Speaking at an event organized by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, under the theme “Economic Revitalization Amid COVID-19 Pandemic: The Civil Society Organizations’ Perspective”, Abena Osei-Asare said the Interior Minister has been tasked to develop a gaming policy to raise some revenue from the sector and road tolls are expected to be increased to embark on road infrastructure development.

She added that the introduction of new taxes in the 2021 budget and the Ghana.Gov payments platform is also expected to improve efficiency and revenue mobilization.

Meanwhile, the Minority has threatened to shoot down attempts by the government to increase road tolls in the country.

“We agree with the government that we must get more resources to the road ministry to improve our roads. We’ll support the government in that endeavour but we shall not support the government to increase road tolls unless government is able to cap road fund, give all that money to the road ministry and then we can discuss the gap that will be left.

“Until that time, they cannot get the support from our side of the House to increase road tolls,” a minority spokesperson on Roads and Transport Governs Kwame Agbodza told a Press conference recently.