- Deloitte Urges Targeted Telecom Incentives as Ghana Chases Deeper Digital Inclusion
Ghana’s telecommunications industry is becoming too important to the economy to be treated simply as another source of tax revenue, according to industry and tax experts who are calling for a more deliberate balance between fiscal mobilisation and the investment needed to deepen digital participation.
The debate came into focus at a Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications and Deloitte forum on “Digital Infrastructure and Nation Building: Assessing Tax Contributions, Fiscal Impact, and the Role of Policy Incentives in Ghana’s Telecom Growth Story.”
At the centre of the discussion was whether government can continue extracting more revenue from the sector without weakening the investment needed to expand affordable access and digital use.
The backdrop is a sector growing materially faster than much of the economy. Ghana’s information and communication sub-sector expanded by 20.20% in 2025, making it the fastest-growing service sub-sector, while services as a whole accounted for 45.90% of GDP and contributed 58.20% of total GDP growth during the year.
Wisdom Kpano, Partner, Tax & Regulatory at Deloitte Ghana, said total tax revenue reached GH¢184bn in 2025, up 30.00%, underscoring both the fiscal importance of the sector and the wider economy it supports.
“In terms of the contribution from a revenue point of view, I believe that we can all agree that that is not in doubt,” Mr Kpano said. His concern, however, was whether tax policy is being designed with enough regard for the investment and consumption needed to sustain future growth.
The question, in effect, is whether short-term fiscal gains could weaken the very digital expansion that will generate larger economic and tax bases over time.
Ghana has already achieved extensive geographic network coverage, with Mr Kpano citing roughly 99.00% coverage nationwide.
But he argued that coverage should not be confused with meaningful digital inclusion because large numbers of people still live within network areas without making full use of mobile internet and digital services.
He identified device affordability, data costs, social barriers and infrastructure limitations as the main drivers of that usage gap.
“How do we ensure that the 99% coverage we have across the country, we are actually getting people to use the connectivity that is provided?” he asked.
That question matters economically because network infrastructure only begins to generate its full development value when households and businesses use it for payments, commerce, financial services, information, education and formal economic activity.
A tower that reaches a community but serves consumers who cannot afford smartphones or data delivers only part of its potential return.
Device affordability is therefore becoming a central policy issue. Mr Kpano argued that Ghana should examine whether reducing the fiscal burden on smartphones and other digital equipment could accelerate adoption sufficiently to offset the immediate loss of tax revenue.
The principle, he said, should not be whether an incentive reduces taxes in isolation, but whether it produces a measurable economic return through higher usage, investment and wider participation in the digital economy.
He cited Ghana’s own experience after the removal of an import-related charge in April 2025, which he linked to a reported 31.00% increase in mobile-money transaction volumes between April and December of that year.
The example suggests that lower access costs can create multiplier effects by increasing adoption, transaction volumes and financial inclusion. Greater usage can then generate additional economic activity and potentially recover part of the fiscal cost through a broader tax base.
The argument does not imply that telecommunications is undertaxed. Ghana collected GH¢823.17mn in Communications Service Tax in 2024, up 24.00% from the previous year, according to figures cited from the Ministry of Finance’s tax revenue report.
The policy issue is therefore not whether the sector contributes to government revenue, but how to maximise its long-term fiscal and economic value without suppressing investment and consumption.
Mr Kpano pointed to South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria as examples of more targeted policy interventions. South Africa has taken steps around entry-level smartphone affordability, Kenya has explored device-financing schemes and Nigeria has used measures such as rights-of-way waivers to encourage infrastructure investment.
His argument was that Ghana should avoid broad, open-ended concessions and instead direct incentives towards clearly defined bottlenecks such as rural connectivity, device affordability, network expansion and renewable energy.
“Rural connectivity is a key area. That should be looked at, and not broad targets that are not useful,” he said. Renewable energy could also become part of the solution, particularly where operators face high power costs at rural network sites and could use solar infrastructure to lower operating expenses.
Such measures would potentially support both digital expansion and Ghana’s broader clean-energy transition.
But every incentive has a fiscal cost, and Mr Kpano argued that government must measure what it gives up against what the economy gains. “Because [it is] tax revenue. So we should be able to identify what is the cost and how does that connect to measurable returns back into the economy,” he said.
That distinction is important because an incentive that generates new infrastructure, employment and consumption has a different economic value from one that simply reduces the tax burden of an investment that would have happened anyway.
Governance therefore becomes as important as the incentive itself. Mr Kpano cautioned that tax exemptions and concessions have historically been vulnerable to abuse and said stronger systems are needed both when incentives are granted and when their outcomes are assessed.
He also pointed to institutional improvements such as the Tax Appeals Board as part of creating a more predictable environment for investors operating in a capital-intensive sector.
The broader policy challenge is one of competing interests that are all legitimate. Government needs sustainable tax revenue, operators need a predictable environment in which infrastructure investment remains commercially viable, consumers need affordable devices and data, and the wider economy needs connectivity that translates into productivity rather than merely network availability.
Mr Kpano’s core argument was that telecommunications should therefore be treated as an economic platform rather than simply a taxable industry.
“The sector contributing is not in doubt, but definitely goes beyond taxes,” he said. “It’s about connectivity, it’s about SME growth, and it’s about financial inclusion.”
With information and communication now among Ghana’s fastest-growing economic activities, the policy conversation is shifting from how much more government can collect from telecom operators to how taxation can be structured to expand the digital economy from which future revenues will ultimately come.
