Mid-Year Budget: We are focusing on housing, road financing, not taxes - Finance minister

The 2024 Mid-Year Budget Statement will dwell mostly on housing and road financing through public-private partnership (PPP) and not taxation, the Minister of Finance has said.

Dr Mohammed Amin Adam said the taxes that were to be raised had already been approved by Parliament and there would not be any new taxes.

He said this when he together with his directors met with members of Ghana Association of Bankers, Non-Bank Financial Institutions, Civil Society Organisations, academia and trade associations.

The engagement was to continue to whip up the interest and commitment of the banks to the growth of the economy by deepening the PPP arrangement.

Dr Amin Adam said the nation needed to be intentional about growth and bringing the banks to help accelerate the PPP in financing public investments and projects was crucial.

“Government is not able to take as much external credit as it could because we want to achieve our debt sustainability levels. We expect the Mid-Year Budget Review to announce a few measures on how we can promote economic growth and get the banks to appreciate where we are going,” he said.

The Minister gave an assurance that Government was not going to touch T-bills, adding that “as the Minister, we do not intend to touch the T-bills. They are safe.”

He urged the bankers and financial industry players to have confidence in the economy as the data had shown that Ghana was on the right path.

“The tough decisions that the government had taken when we were in crisis will certainly not be the same decisions to take in our economic recovery,” Dr Amin Adam said.

In encouraging the bankers, he said, they had a role to play in building investor confidence by “telling them of our smooth effective recovery but if you don’t do so, then you have succeeded in deterring them from investing in our economy.”

Mr John Awuah, Chief Executive Officer, Ghana Association of Banks, in his remarks, said there was some work to be done in the area of market assurance as banks had not taken on board government instruments.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), he said they were ready to support the economic recovery where businesses would thrive.

He said the banks would provide credit support so long as it would not pose a risk to the industry.

He raised concerns over the delay on the part of rating agencies in grading Ghana’s trajectory and recovery, adding that as banks they had started analysis of the progress that Ghana had made.

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