Government committed to deal with GH¢2 billion revenue losses in petroleum sector – Ofori-Atta

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has expressed the government’s commitment to deal with revenue losses in the petroleum sector.

The country is said to have lost almost GH¢2 billion cedis in tax revenue due to regulatory lapses and leakages.

There are concerns about the government’s commitments to block these loopholes to raise the required revenue for the state.

Speaking in a Virtual PwC Budget Forum on Tuesday, Mr Ofori-Atta said a lot of time is needed to deal with these challenges in the sector.

“For us as a Ministry and also telling if there are leakages in the petroleum sector OMC’s, can we form a group to make sure that those things stop and it not the responsibility of government it’s a responsibility for all of us. I know there will be issues about efficiency but we are also using the digitization system, I believe we have the members in the right places, we should be able to move our revenue and GDP to the 20% that we want because of the digitalization,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Government is looking at raising about ¢72.4 billion in revenue and grants. It is expected that ¢55.6 billion will come from taxes. However, some analysts and tax consultants have raised issues with these policy measures.