Government misses revenue target by 13% in first six months of 2021

Government has missed its half-year revenue target by about 13 percent according to the 2021 mid-year budget review.

According to the Finance Minister, Total Revenue and grants generated for the first six months of the year, thus between January to June amounted to GH¢28.3 billion as against a programmed targeted amount of GH¢32.4 billion.

On the expenditure front, Ken Ofori-Atta told the MPs that, government performed better as it recorded a shortfall of its programmed targeted amount by about GH¢5 billion whilst spending GH¢50.6 billion, against a programmed target of GH¢55.1billion.

He, however, indicated that government will through its Revenue Assurance and Compliance Enforcement (RACE) initiative ensure that all its programmed revenue targets will be collected to avoid revenue slippages.

“Our focus on taxes is to collect what is due to the Republic. To this end, we are building a robust framework to expand Domestic Revenue Mobilisation to focus on compliance and enforcement nationwide. We have established the Revenue Assurance and Compliance Enforcement (RACE)," he said.

He continued, "the remit of RACE is to identify and eliminate revenue leakages in areas such as petroleum bunkering, gold and minerals export, port operations, transit goods, warehousing, border controls and free zones operations, to name but a few.”

Meanwhile, the government of Ghana has disclosed it will not be seeking additional funding and a supplementary budget for the next half of the financial year.

The move, the finance minister noted, is intended to contain the country's rising debt stock as well as avoiding fiscal revenue slippages.

The presentation of the mid-year budget by the finance minister is in accordance with Article 179 of the 1992 Constitution and the Public Financial Management Act 921, which offers the opportunity to revise macroeconomic targets and provide a comprehensive economic outlook for the rest of the year. Read Full Story