BUDGET Government to mobilise $1.26 billion

Accra, Nov. 16, GNA - The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu said on Thursday that the government would mobilize a total of US$1.26 billion of both loans and grants from development partners.

Presenting the 2007 Budget and Financial Statement to Parliament, he said the disbursement of these funds for 2007 was expected to reach US$0.67 billion.

He said the Ministry would also intensify efforts at mobilizing external resources and ensuring the efficient, effective, transparent and timely utilization of funds by the various beneficiary Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

"Steps will be taken towards the alignment of aid pledges and commitments to national priorities within the Harmonization and Alignment Framework for Aid Effectiveness under the Paris Declaration principles."

Mr. Baah-Wiredu said the National External Resource Mobilization Policy, which had been initiated and currently being developed would be pursued and completed to provide guidelines for external resource mobilization and utilization and to further clarify responsibilities of MDA's in this process.

He said activities to further deepen the money market and improve domestic debt management such as the introduction of Cash Management Bills to meet temporary cash needs of government would be pursued. Furthermore, the Ministry will revise issuance calendar to foster the development of bench mark yield curve, utilize CS-DRMS 2000+ software for domestic debt management, build capacity for domestic debt management and initiate the fungible issue of 'medium - term securities and development of secondary market.

Mr Baah-Wiredu said in 2007 the Ministry would continue its efforts at strengthening and ensuring a more facilitative regulatory framework to improve the financial market infrastructure to increase access and depth of financial services.

He said a Demand Survey for Financial Services in Ghana and a remittances programme aimed at developing remittances as a major capital inflow and to improve the reach and depth of financial service delivery in Ghana would be conducted.

The regulatory framework required for the implementation of the International Financial Services Centre will be put in place to enable the commencement of activities in 2008/9.

The Minister said the Ministry would continue to monitor and evaluate the impact of fiscal policy on sectoral performance of MDAs and MMDAs to ensure that the budgetary allocations were used to fund activities that lead to the realization of sectoral targets. On Internal Revenue Service, Mr Baah-Wiredu said it would commence full computerization of its operations, establish a five per cent withholding Tax monitoring Units to draw in non compliance tax payers to maximize collection and intensify tax education, enforcement and tax audit.

The GCNet Unit in the Research Division will be made fully operational to capture tax payers who prepare fictitious accounts. The Minister said with the re-launch of the Tax Stamp and the establishment of Small Tax Payers Bureau to administer particularly Rent Tax and Tax Stamp, the ground was prepared for an increase in revenue from the informal sector.

Interns from the Ministry of Manpower would be fully engaged in fieldwork with the Small Tax Payer Bureau to monitor the process of administering these taxes.

The Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) would enhance the performance of personnel through Capacity Building programmes and commence electronic transmission of permits, licenses and other authorization to CEPS (GCMS) via GCNeT.