Godfred Bokpin, an economist and professor of finance at the University of Ghana Business School, has reiterated his call for urgent tax reforms, emphasizing that Ghana’s current tax system is hindering business growth.
He highlighted that the numerous taxes levied at the ports contribute to rising production costs, making it increasingly difficult for companies to operate efficiently.
To mitigate these challenges, Bokpin stressed the importance of reducing the country’s dependence on imports. He urged policymakers to address economic leakages and strengthen local industries by empowering technical institutions and universities to boost domestic production.
This, he argued, would help reduce reliance on imported goods and ease the financial burden of export taxes at the ports.
” The problem is from the distribution end of the value chain. That is where the leakages are. If you have a distribution entity that has only collected about 43% of the revenues that is supposed to collect on the average every month, that is a big problem that you have on your hands. How do we ensure that they are able to collect? Mind you that there is a regulator that gives benchmarks for such collection rates, losses, and all of this.
Year in, year out, this utility continues not to meet the requirements and nothing is being done to them because they are all government entities. In fact last year, we saw how the utility was fighting its regulator even in the public, and this is why we have come to the conclusion that government has shown it cannot reform itself because there’s no accountability for the decisions within the space.”
