Individual Bondholders Forum suggest options for Ghana’s Debt sustainability, pre-requisite for …

The  Ghana Individual Bondholders Forum, IBF has proposed to the government, several fiscal readjustment measures to the government expenditure and revenue which it indicated, will ensure revenue savings to the tune of GHS 83.45bn.

The recommended fiscal readjustment measures to the government, the IBF notes, will contain the current economic crisis and help Ghana to achieve its debt sustainability goal, a pre-requisite for a $3bn IMF bailout.

Reiterating its position for the exclusion of individual bondholders, the Technical Committee of the IBF in its interaction with the government, averred fiscal readjustments can be made in the areas of oil and gas, mining, divestiture of SOEs, property taxes, recovery of funds through financial irregularities, recovery of funds through tax evasion, rationalization of budget of SOEs, among .

According to the IBF, it believes its fiscal readjustment recommendations are “competent enough” to urgently address the country’s fiscal challenges and enable the country to reach its desired 55% debt-to-GDP ratio target as proposed by the International Monetary Fund.

As part of the recommendations the IBF wants the government to Enforce the filing of interest/coupon income on corporate instruments such as ESLA, Daakye Cocoa bills as part of Personal Income Tax and effect the 25% tax related to the income.

Alternatively, revise the 1% withholding of the related securities to 20% and make it final and deductible at the source. This is expected to create an additional revenue of circa GHS 104 million for the current fiscal year.

Also, the IBF recommended that the government should, as a matter of urgency, review the regulatory and fiscal environment to encourage existing producers to ramp up production and develop new fields.

Oil production dropped in 2022.