Economist, Dr Said Boakye
• Dr Said Boakye has proferred advice to government about revamping the country’s economy
• Dr Saed said economies largely depend on revenues from their extractive sector to plan their development and Ghana needs to do that
• Ghana was ranked 26th, out of 36 lower-middle-income countries in tax collections in 2019, maintaining virtually the same position in 2020
Economist Dr Said Boakye has said that the country must develop strategies to manage its extractive sector since many developing countries largely depend on them to develop.
According to him, this is the only way to know whether the country is heading towards the right direction or not.
Speaking in an interview with Joy Business News closely monitored by GhanaWeb, Dr Boakye said the Britainwood institutions have been wrongfully advising the country.
“Let us find ways to fix this menace not necessarily through taxing and I hope IFS will come out very soon, we cannot continue to virtually give away our extractive resources. In developing a country, economies largely depend upon revenues from their extractive sector to plan their development. If IMF and World Bank or whatever comes over here and say we should raise the taxes, it is another wrong advice.
“Always we should raise our tax revenue, how much can we tax poor people. The extractive sector that is in the hands of foreign investors we have to take it back so that we are able to raise revenue to develop, if only we are interested in development. We can’t take this bold decision,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ghana was ranked 26th, out of 36 lower-middle-income countries in tax collections in 2019, with the positioning almost remaining same in 2020, findings from a survey conducted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Ministry of Finance has revealed.
However, out of a sample of 35 countries from sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana was ranked 17th in terms of tax-to-Gross Domestic Product ratio.
This position is making it difficult for government to increase its financing for capital projects such as hospitals, schools and roads.