BUDGET: Ministries to programme non-taxable revenue

as part of budget allocation

Accra, Feb. 5, GNA- Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) who have legislative approval to retain and use non-taxable revenue will now be required to programme these resources as part of their budgetary allocations, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning said on Thursday.
Presenting the Government's Budget Statement to Parliament, on Thursday, Mr Osafo-Maafo said the MDAs would also submit on a monthly basis, full disclosure of the amount collected and how they were utilized.
He said these requirements are in line with Section 6(3), of the Financial Administration Act.
To improve the capacity of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies to generate more non-tax revenue the Minister announced a budgetary allocation of 23 billion cedis to provide additional funding for non-tax revenue enhancement activities.
"It is envisaged that with increased and adequate budget support for revenue enhancement activities, the granting of approvals to individual Ministries, Departments and Agencies to retain certain percentages of their collections would be curtailed so that more of the non-tax revenue receipts would be paid into the Consolidated Fund," he added.
Mr Osafo Maafo announced that to minimise fraudulent claims by contractors, a special committee would study the current system of applying and computing interest rates on arrears and the use of "escalation" and "variation" clauses in contracts to rationalise payments to foreign and local contracts.
The Committee comprise representatives from the Ministries of Roads and Transport, Finance and Economic Planning and Bank of Ghana, he said.