- 2027 Budget Must Pair New Spending With Stronger Accountability — BudgIT
BudgIT Ghana has urged the government to use the 2027 Budget to widen the tax base, strengthen transparency around the Big Push infrastructure programme and provide clearer implementation frameworks for major social interventions, warning that ambitious spending without stronger accountability could leave the state with unfinished projects and weak value for money.
Jennifer Moffatt, Country Lead of BudgIT Ghana, said the fiscal strategy should shift increasingly from repeatedly taxing already compliant citizens towards identifying wealth and economic activity that remain outside the formal tax net.
Speaking at a civil society engagement on inputs into the 2027 National Budget, she highlighted five priority areas: domestic revenue mobilisation and VAT reforms, the Big Push Agenda, 24-hour markets, completion of Agenda 111 hospitals and the Women’s Development Bank.
A central element of BudgIT Ghana’s proposal is a more systematic approach to identifying high-net-worth individuals whose asset holdings may not correspond with declared taxable income.
Ms Moffatt argued that the Ghana Revenue Authority could make better use of information held by agencies such as the Lands Commission and Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority to compare property and luxury vehicle ownership with tax declarations.
“So one thing that we can leverage will be the Lands Commission and also DVLA,” she said. “If we have the data from DVLA, it can show you the number of luxury vehicles and things that are also coming into the country and who and who are registering them.”
Land records could provide an additional layer of information, allowing the tax authority to identify substantial property ownership and compare those holdings with income reported for tax purposes.
“This will help us to match the wealth accumulation with tax declarations as well. So that is our recommendation for high-net-worth individuals,” Ms Moffatt said.
The proposal would represent a shift towards compliance-driven revenue mobilisation rather than relying primarily on higher tax rates.
Better integration of public databases could potentially allow government to identify economic capacity that is already visible through asset accumulation but is not being captured effectively through the tax system.
BudgIT Ghana also wants policymakers to examine how international digital and platform businesses earning revenue from Ghana are taxed. Ms Moffatt cited companies such as Bolt and Temu, arguing that their interaction with Ghanaian consumers creates a case for mechanisms that capture a larger share of locally generated economic value.
Rather than relying heavily on VAT, which is ultimately borne by consumers, BudgIT Ghana suggested that government examine withholding mechanisms applied to revenue generated within Ghana. “For the artisanal and then the international organisation, what we are proposing will be a withholding tax on their revenue,” Ms Moffatt said.
The implementation challenge will be significant because poorly designed taxation of informal operators could increase compliance costs for people with volatile incomes, while cross-border digital taxation raises questions around double taxation, jurisdiction and whether companies ultimately pass the cost back to consumers. The policy test will therefore be broadening the tax net without weakening investment incentives or creating distortions greater than the revenue gained.
BudgIT Ghana reserved some of its strongest concerns for the government’s Big Push infrastructure programme, arguing that the scale of the initiative requires considerably stronger disclosure around procurement, financing and implementation. “What we are asking for is that they publish real-time data on all ongoing projects,” Ms Moffatt said.
Such disclosure, the organisation argues, should identify project locations, contractors, implementation timelines, procurement arrangements and financing sources. BudgIT Ghana also wants greater clarity on how petroleum and other extractive revenues may be contributing to the programme and what role private investors are playing.
“If that is going to be the case, we want to know how much money is allocated for which and who and who is benefiting,” Ms Moffatt said. The concern is that large infrastructure programmes can generate considerable economic benefits while simultaneously creating opportunities for cost overruns, fragmented implementation and weak oversight when information is not easily accessible.
BudgIT Ghana has consequently proposed consideration of a phased, region-by-region implementation model rather than spreading construction simultaneously across the country. The argument is that concentrating resources could improve completion rates and reduce the risk of government starting numerous projects without sufficient fiscal or administrative capacity to finish them.
The organisation also wants contracts associated with the Big Push to be accessible through the Ghana Electronic Procurement System. That would allow civil society, businesses and citizens to track procurement decisions and compare promised expenditure with actual implementation.
Similar caution was raised over plans for 24-hour markets across districts. BudgIT Ghana warned against applying a standard infrastructure model to communities with substantially different levels of population, security, transport connectivity and commercial activity.
Its presentation indicated that 25% of District Assemblies Common Fund allocations had been directed towards constructing 24-hour markets, making needs assessment particularly important.
Ms Moffatt warned that facilities built without sufficient demand could become “white elephants”, particularly in areas where security conditions or limited nighttime commerce make round-the-clock operations commercially unrealistic.
BudgIT Ghana also wants the 2027 Budget to provide a credible roadmap for completing 10 unfinished Agenda 111 hospitals. It is seeking clarity on implementation timelines, funding commitments and whether completion of the facilities will receive sufficient priority relative to new capital projects.
The Women’s Development Bank faces a similar transparency test. Ms Moffatt said prospective beneficiaries need clearer information about its operating structure, eligibility rules, financing channels and whether it will function as a conventional bank or work through existing financial institutions.
“What do we know whether we can access that money? We want to know the modality,” she said. “Is it like a regular bank that everybody can walk inside and do something?”
For policymakers preparing the 2027 Budget, BudgIT Ghana’s proposals amount to a broader challenge around fiscal credibility. Ghana’s consolidation effort will depend not only on how much revenue government can mobilise or how much expenditure it announces, but on whether public money can be traced from collection through procurement to measurable outcomes.
Expanding the tax base could create additional fiscal space, but the willingness of citizens and businesses to finance the state is closely connected to whether they can see how those resources are used. For BudgIT Ghana, the 2027 Budget therefore represents an opportunity to link revenue reform with stronger transparency, ensuring that new taxes and ambitious spending programmes are matched by clearer evidence of delivery.
