- GRA Hails B5 Plus Compliance as Ghana Seeks Broader Tax Base and Lower Borrowing
B5 Plus Company Limited has presented a GH¢400 million tax cheque to the Ghana Revenue Authority, providing a sizeable contribution to domestic revenue mobilisation while highlighting the growing connection between industrial expansion and fiscal sustainability. The payment comes as government seeks to strengthen revenue collection, reduce dependence on borrowing and create more fiscal space for infrastructure and public services. Its significance therefore extends beyond the immediate addition to government coffers.
For Ghana, where expenditure pressures have repeatedly outpaced domestic revenue, a larger productive tax base offers a more durable path to fiscal consolidation than repeated reliance on debt. B5 Plus, one of the country’s major iron and steel manufacturers, illustrates how industrial activity can translate directly into government revenue when businesses reach scale and remain compliant. The policy challenge is to replicate that relationship across a much wider section of the formal economy.
Dr Martin Kolbil Yamborigya, Commissioner of the GRA’s Domestic Tax Revenue Division, praised B5 Plus for its compliance and linked taxation directly to national development. He said taxes paid by businesses help finance roads, schools, hospitals, security and social interventions. That argument captures a central tension in Ghana’s fiscal policy: government needs stronger revenue, but taxpayers increasingly expect evidence that their contributions are being converted into productive public spending.
The distinction between tax revenue and borrowing is particularly important. Borrowed money creates future obligations through principal and interest payments, while tax generated from expanding production does not carry the same debt-service burden. When higher tax receipts come from companies producing more, selling more and employing more people, the fiscal gain can be accompanied by broader economic benefits.
That means Ghana’s revenue strategy cannot be separated from its industrial strategy. Creating more large and profitable taxpayers requires reliable power, efficient ports and roads, access to finance, predictable regulation and protection against unfair competition. Tax administration can improve compliance, but it cannot on its own create the productive capacity from which sustainable tax revenues ultimately emerge.
The government’s recent support for the steel industry provides one illustration of that approach. In February, President John Dramani Mahama commissioned additional facilities at B5 Plus’s Lakpleku operations in the Ningo-Prampram Municipality, including the Steel Ball, Section Mill and PEP Extension Manufacturing Plants. He has also argued that restricting exports of non-ferrous scrap could increase access to raw materials for domestic processors and encourage the export of finished and semi-finished products rather than raw material.
President Mahama estimated that the policy could lift processed-metal exports by US$250 million to US$300 million annually and create between 5,000 and 10,000 jobs. More domestic processing could also generate corporate income tax, VAT, PAYE and other government revenues while potentially reducing dependence on imported finished products. The fiscal case for industrialisation is therefore not just about factory output, but about the wider tax and foreign-exchange benefits created when more value is retained within Ghana.
Industrial policy, however, cannot stop at collecting more tax from firms that have already reached scale. Manufacturers require competitive operating conditions if they are to invest, expand employment and compete with imports, and energy costs remain especially important for steel producers. President Mahama has linked continuous factory operations to the 24-hour economy programme, arguing that multiple shifts can raise productivity, reduce wastage and increase exports.
The government has allocated GH¢110 million in the 2026 budget to operationalise the 24-hour economy programme. For manufacturers, however, the credibility of the policy will depend less on the budget allocation itself than on whether it delivers reliable electricity, efficient logistics and a stable regulatory environment. Without those conditions, firms may struggle to expand sufficiently to generate the larger tax base government wants.
Tax administration is the other half of the equation. Ghana’s 2026 VAT reforms abolished the COVID-19 Health Recovery Levy and introduced changes intended to simplify administration, while the GRA has continued expanding digital services through its Taxpayers’ Portal. The broader objective is to make compliance easier for legitimate businesses while making evasion and leakage more difficult.
Dr Yamborigya urged businesses to maintain proper records, file accurate returns and pay the correct amount of tax, while also encouraging consumers to demand VAT invoices. The appeal reflects the structure of consumption taxation, where businesses collect taxes on behalf of the state and consumers can help reinforce compliance through proper invoicing. But the relationship also creates a reciprocal obligation on government to demonstrate that tax revenue is being used efficiently and accountably.
That accountability bargain may ultimately determine public support for stronger domestic revenue mobilisation. Tax compliance becomes easier to justify when businesses and citizens can see a credible connection between their contributions and improvements in infrastructure, healthcare, education, security and other services. Without that connection, enforcement risks being perceived primarily as extraction rather than part of a wider social and economic contract.
B5 Plus’s GH¢400 million payment should therefore be understood as more than a corporate tax announcement. It illustrates the economic cycle Ghana is trying to build: investment generates production, production creates jobs and taxable activity, tax revenues finance public services and infrastructure, and better infrastructure can in turn support further private investment. Breaking that cycle at any stage weakens both industrial competitiveness and fiscal sustainability.
For the GRA, the immediate challenge is to replicate the level of compliance represented by B5 Plus across thousands of businesses, while government must ensure that compliant firms operate in an environment where expansion remains commercially viable. Ghana cannot reduce its dependence on borrowing merely by increasing tax rates; it needs a larger, more productive formal economy capable of generating sustainable revenues. In that sense, the GH¢400 million cheque is important not only for what it contributes today, but for what it says about the kind of industrial and fiscal model Ghana needs to build for the future.
