Dr. Kwadwo Mensah making a presentation
Director of Research at the International Centre for Evaluation, Dr. Kwadwo-Mensah has said government subsidy on the provision of social services should incorporate targeting framework.
That, he explained would allow the poor to benefit more and help improve income distribution especially if the existing institutional structure by which the subsidy is administered would allow the non-poor to appropriate more of the benefits.
“Transfers and subsidy programmes that have some elements of targeting for instance, LEAP, and to some extent COVID-19 electricity subsidy are more progressive compared to those without any form of targeting such as the simulated Free SHS benefits and COVID-19 water subsidy,” he said.
Making a presentation at the launch of a micro simulation tool on fiscal incidence analysis by the World Bank, Oxfam and the Institute of Social, Statistical and Economic Research (ISSER), in Accra,  he said, the results of the simulation using the Free SHS policy indicates that in the short term without incorporating any behavioural response to the policy, poverty rates reduced marginally by 0.07% and 0.22% at the national lower and upper poverty lines respectively compared to when households paid education expenses.
He however, said that the Free-SHS policy is less progressive given its universal nature where no form of targeting was considered coupled with the higher access to education by the rich compared to the poor at the time the policy started.
“We should strict prove some of these interventions, government should test what they have to do because every dollor is important and should be able to solve some stress or need of people. Government expenditure should be checked whether it is really benefiting those who are meant to benefits from it,” he added.
Senior Economist, Poverty and Equity Global Practice, Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions at the World Bank and Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, University of Ghana, Paul Corral, took participants through the micro simulation tool.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah