Government revenue losses due to the impacts of Covid-19 is expected to increase to Ghs 44 billion by 2023.
This after a revenue loss of Ghs 26 billion and Ghs 18.9 billion in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
This is according to the Senior Technical Advisor at the Finance Ministry, Dr Nii Noi Ashong.
Ghana has already lost some Ghs 11 billion to Covid-19 in attempts to mitigate the adverse impacts of pandemic on households and businesses last year.
“This year, some Ghs 18.9 billion will be lost, Ghs 26 billion in 2022 and Ghs 44 billion in 2023. This is the difficulty you have because of Covid, it has devastated both economic activities and the human beings that are to generate those economic activities. So it’s not just numbers that have been lost but what those people could be doing to help the economy grow,” Dr Ashong stated.
The expected revenue losses will due to reduction in tax and levies payments to government by sub-sectors of the economy badly hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
With the projected revenue losses, fiscal deficit is expected to continue on an elevated path as government will need to borrow to finance the deficit gap created by falling revenues and rising public expenditure, further worsening the country’s debt burden.
Meanwhile, government in the 2021 Budget Statement has projected total revenue mobilization for this year to be Ghs 72.4 billion representing 16.7 per cent of Gross Domestic Product.
Its total public expenditure for the year is Ghs 113 billion representing 26.6 per cent of GDP.
