Former Finance Minister, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adams has called on the government to maintain its focus on digital solutions to further enhance the country’s tax revenue performance.
Contributing to a statement on digital fraud in Parliament today, Dr. Adams underscored the significant role that digital platforms have played in improving revenue collection and boosting tax compliance.
“The impact of digitalisation on our revenue performance is clear in the numbers we are now seeing,” Mr. Adams said.
He pointed to key technological measures implemented under his tenure, including the Ghana.gov payment platform, the Electronic VAT (E-VAT) system, and the I-Cons platform.
These innovations, according to the former Minister, have been instrumental in increasing the efficiency of revenue collection.
He also referenced a 2022 report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which revealed that Ghana’s tax-to-GDP ratio stood at 30.8%, well below the government’s target of 18% by 2027.
However, Dr. Adams emphasized that the country has made remarkable progress over the past two years.
By the end of 2024, Ghana’s tax-to-GDP ratio had increased to 17%, up from 13.8% in 2022.
“This is a significant achievement,” Adams remarked. He highlighted the leap from GH₵75 billion in tax revenue to GH₵154 billion, noting that these gains were largely the result of digital tools and systems that had been put in place.
“The digital solutions we implemented directly contributed to doubling our revenue collection and improving our tax-to-GDP ratio,” he added.
Dr. Adams urged the new Minister for Finance to continue pushing these digital tax initiatives to achieve the 18% target as early as this year, rather than waiting until 2027.
“If we can increase the tax-to-GDP ratio by 3.2 percentage points in two years, hitting that final 1% increase this year is entirely achievable,” he said.
Dr. Adams also outlined a series of measures required to advance the digitalisation of the tax system, including faceless tax assessments, digital tax record-keeping, and simplifying tax processes to improve compliance.
In addition, Dr. Adams called for greater support for local tech companies that have contributed to developing digital tax solutions over the last three years.
“These local firms have been key to our progress, and we should continue to support them with a local content policy to ensure that we source technology solutions from Ghanaian companies,” he stated.
Concluding his speech, Dr. Adams reaffirmed the importance of digitalisation for Ghana’s economic growth.
He drew attention to remarks made by former Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia at the Africa Prospective Dialogue, where he emphasized that digitalisation is essential for Africa’s economic transformation.
“This is a vindication of the efforts Dr. Bawumia has championed to ensure digitalisation becomes a driver of economic progress for Ghana,” the former minister said.
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House