President Akufo-Addo’s assertion that the economic challenges facing Ghana are not a hopeless situation and the report that the Bank of Ghana has raised the policy rate by 300 basis points to 22 per cent are some of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Friday.
The Graphic reports that the economic challenges facing the country are not a hopeless situation, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has asserted.
He said the government was working assiduously to return the economy back to the high rates of growth that characterised the three years preceding the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 and thus bring relief to the people.
“I urge all of you gathered here to have that same belief that the fortunes of Ghana under the Presidency of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will be restored. The Battle is the Lord’s,” he declared.
The President made the declaration in an address at the opening of the 12th Biennial and 50th Golden Conference of the Methodist Church of Ghana in Winneba yesterday.
About 2,000 delegates are attending the conference.
He further gave an assurance that the government was determined to continue to roll out appropriate policies and programmes.
The President said he was confident that these policies and programmes, coupled with hard work on the part of Ghanaians, would make the country come out of the current economic challenges.
“Above all, I continue to have an abiding faith in God to help turn the fortunes of our nation around, accompanied by appropriate policies, determination and hard work on our part.
President Akufo-Addo indicated that his objective, since assuming office in 2017, had been to help improve the living standards of Ghanaians.
The newspaper says that Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has expressed shock at the extent of identity fraud that has been uncovered on government payroll, following a biometric audit with the Ghanacard by the Controller and Accountant General Department.
Addressing Internal Auditors at their 2022 Conference in Accra, Vice President Bawumia revealed that the audit discovered about 148,000 workers on government payroll whose identities did not match any Ghanacard, as well as 533 people, who were discovered to have tripple identities, and possibly three accounts on government payroll.
Suspicious and non-existent workers drawing salaries on government payroll are popularly labelled “ghost workers”, and addressing the case of those with triple identities, Dr. Bawumia sarcastically wondered whether triplet ghosts exist.
“I have heard of ghost workers but never heard of ghosts who are twins or triplets,” said the Vice President, amidst laughter by the audience.
“That is a new one, but we will get to the bottom of the corruption with ghost workers on our payroll,” he added.
Expressing concern about identity fraud on government payroll, Dr. Bawumia said the canker is draining government coffers.
He however, remained optimistic that the Ghanacard, which has been the bedrock of a robust identity system Ghana is building, will eventually deal with the situation and other forms of identity fraud and discrepancies.
Already, the Ghanacard has uncovered about 14,000 ghost names on the payroll of the National Service Scheme after a biometric audit.
Through the biometric audit at the National Service, government is saving GH¢112m annually following the elimination of the 14,000 ghost names.
The Graphic also reports that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has raised the policy rate by 300 basis points (bp) to 22 per cent in a historic move meant to ease growing inflationary pressure and contain the heightened fall in the value of the cedi.
The central bank has also raised the primary reserve requirement of banks from 12 per cent to 15 per cent to help mop up liquidity and douse the price pressures.
The two policy decisions are part of a raft of measures that BoG took after an emergency Monetary Policy Committee meeting on Wednesday (August 17, 2022).
The seven-member committee also announced plans by the Bank to purchase all foreign exchange arising from the voluntary repatriation of export proceeds from mining, and oil and gas companies to help shore up forex liquidity.
BoG is betting on the measures to help arrest the cedi depreciation which has heightened in the face of growing micro fiscal challenges.
Beyond helping to slowdown inflation and the cedi depreciation, the increment in the policy rate and the reserve requirement of banks is expected to feed into interest rates, leading to higher lending costs for households and businesses.
The Ghanaian Times says that the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has urged the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the National Identification Authority (NIA) to expedite action on the integration of their systems in order to rope in eligible taxpaying Ghanaians onto the tax net.
It has also asked the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Ghana and the Economic Management Team to take pragmatic steps to resolve the current economic challenges which were negatively affecting businesses in the country, including exchange rate depreciation, high inflation and high cost of borrowing.
Mr Benedict Doh, Finance Manager, GII, said these when he presented the GII’s survey findings on “Exploring innovative measures to promote voluntary tax compliance” at the National Tax Policy Forum organised by the initiative with funding support from the Australian Aid in Accra yesterday.
“Ghana’s tax net can be broadened based on the 16.65 million Ghanaians who have registered with the NIA and issued with the unique identity card (Ghana Card),” Mr Doh stated.
“The Ministry of Finance must reconsider the frequency at which exchange rates are changed at the ports and the Bank of Ghana should come up with policies that reduce interest cost,” he added.
Mr Doh indicated that the survey, which had 503 responses with majority of them being private sector actors, had almost half of them representing 42.1 per cent saying that non-compliance was mostly because of harsh economic conditions and the mismanagement of tax revenues.
“Twenty-three per cent said it was because of poor business performance while 16.1 per cent said because they do not benefit from the taxes they pay,” he added.
Mr Doh said that 72.4 per cent of the respondents also said that they were not aware of any public education programme on payment of taxes for which reason the GRA should intensify its tax education programmes to reach the masses.
“The GRA must intensify public education on the online filing and payment of taxes system as most taxpayers especially those in the informal sector are having some difficulties and high compliance cost in the use of the platforms,” he added.
GIK/APA