Yaw Appiah Lartey, financial advisory partner at Deloitte Ghana, has urged the government to prioritize meeting the IMF policy benchmarks in today’s budget presentation.
He emphasized that this is crucial for boosting investor confidence.
Mr. Lartey also noted that the business community has advised against introducing new taxes, citing the heavy burden of existing ones.
“If you read a report by international agencies like the Economic Intelligence Unit, one of the things that is mentioned that Ghana should watch is to ensure that we are meeting the key benchmark under the IMF program, because missing some of the targets under the IMF program could have a pervasive impact on the economy.”
“Because all it means is that we may not get some of the tranches of disbursement that we’re expecting, and we’ll also kill or affect investor confidence in the economy. So restoring macroeconomic stability is important.”
“Like that was promised by the government, is also important because our interaction with the business community is that they do not expect the government to introduce new taxes. We have too many tax handles, and we cannot add on. What we need to do is to enforce and ensure that taxpayers are complying with existing tax handles,”
“The other thing is also supporting infrastructure development, and what the party has also promised about the 24-hour economy, which certainly they have plans to personalize. We have to see them implemented because it’s one thing putting up a slogan, and it’s another thing operationalizing them and making sure people feel the benefits.
