A leading professional services firm, Deloitte, has shared its perspectives on how government intend to achieve some policies in a report, analysing the 2018 Budget. 

It says government has outlined some new initiatives and interventions but may need to provide some more information on how it intends to fully implement them.

Deloitte asked for more clarity on how the Government intends to fund the proposed cut in electricity tariffs announced by the Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta in which residential and non-residential electricity consumers will enjoy 13 percent reduction in their tariffs.

"It is unclear how Government plans to fund this initiative since it is already indebted to power producers due to subsidies on electricity tariffs." - they observed.

During his second budget presentation, he disclosed that government is working on a number of interventions to relieve consumers.

“If government recommendations to Public Utility and Regulatory Commission (PURC) are accepted, consumers will be expected to benefit from reductions in electricity tariffs,” he said.

The leading professional services firm, Deloitte said, "under this reform, Ghanaians will not only benefit from a reduction in utility costs but also a reduction in prices of manufactured products since industries stand to benefit from the reduction in their cost of production.

Regarding the Akufo-Addo administration's flagship on the One District One factory policy, Deloitte observed that "Post-Independence Ghana had a number of industries, many of which have collapsed due to various factors including management inefficiencies, lack of raw materials and foreign competition."

For this reason, the firm believes for "the programme to be a complete success, there should be a conscious effort to promote the consumption of “made in Ghana goods” to create demand for these factories."

According to Deloitte, some of the tax policy initiatives are expected to enhance the revenue generation objective of the government. Such policies include the proposals for tax amnesty as well as the introduction of voluntary disclosure regime, where taxpayers with undeclared taxes will be allowed to pay such taxes without the imposition of penalty/interest.

The Firm, however, suggested that there will be the need for a comprehensive tax education for the benefit of the program to be fully realized.  

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