The Finance Minister, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, has reaffirmed the government’s commitment to removing some port taxes and levies, ahead of the 2025 budget presentation on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.
Speaking on X space discussion with young people on Sunday evening of March 9, 2025, the minister highlighted government’s commitment to significant tax cuts, which includes the scrapping of certain port charges and levies.
Addressing the government’s plans to improve the current economic state of the country, Dr. Forson said, “there will be a stable exchange rate, stable inflation and a stable economy. That in itself will control the prices that we see moving from 1 cedi to 3 cedis within three days or three weeks. So that should be the focus, and we will work around it to make sure it happens.”
He sought the understanding and patience of the general public, with regards to the implementation of the financial policies.
“If you are to look at the manifesto, we have a number of policies, some are timebound, some within 120 days, some within 1 year, and some after one year, and some in the mid-year term. You can certainly not accommodate every single thing in the manifesto in one budget year. The focus would be shared into five. Thos that we pledged to complete and implement in the first year and within the 120 days. And then also, we plan to implement the mid-year term policies as we have pledged to the people and so, we will ask the general public to understand that some are timebound,” he said.
The finance minister also hinted at an ongoing process to eliminate several taxes and charges on Ghana’s ports. He revealed that many of these levies do not actually reach the state’s coffers.
Dr. Forson mentioned, “We have begun a process to rationalize all the taxes at the ports. We believe that some of the taxes and some of the levies in particular, can be removed, because it will surprise you to know that all these taxes and levies at the ports does not come straight to the central government. Some of the levies you see there are being … I mean, the benefits are not going into the consolidated fund. And so, we need to identify those benefitting from these levies and for what purpose, and then if there is the need for us to remove them, we will have to remove them.”
The minister added that there is already a team on grounds which is working to rationalize some of these levies.
“And so, there is a team that is working at the moment as we speak, and I am sure in due course, we will announce that again in the budget, we will hear some announcements on how we intend to rationalize those levies and taxes at the port in particular. Even though some of these levies are not coming directly to government to support government expenditure or government revenues, clearly, it manifests in the economy in the form of taxes.”
Source: Dehotpress
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