Ghana aims to lift its tax-to-GDP ratio toward 15 percent by end-2026, led by value-added tax (VAT) reform and AI-driven customs enforcement, Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson said.
Speaking at the Ghana-UK Investment Summit alongside Bank of Ghana (BoG) Governor Dr. Johnson Pandit Asiama, Forson said VAT reforms would be the single largest near-term driver of revenue. He projected collections rising at least 20 percent once a rollout of electronic point-of-sale (POS) devices begins in July.
The minister said the overhaul corrects distortions from overlapping sales tax and VAT structures while clearing out levies the government considers inefficient.
“Our VAT system was distorted,” Forson said.
On customs, he said artificial intelligence (AI) now standardises valuation benchmarks, removing discretionary pricing that once allowed under-invoicing. The system is already lifting customs revenue by about $3 million a day, roughly $1 billion a year, he said, describing it as a pillar of the revenue recovery effort.
Together, the reforms are meant to rebuild fiscal space after the 2022 debt crisis and restructuring, which exposed weak revenue mobilisation, and to cut reliance on costly domestic borrowing.
Asiama outlined complementary monetary measures, saying tighter policy and liquidity controls had steadied the economy and allowed interest rates to ease before recent disruption from Middle East tensions. He said stronger reserve buffers had created room to support credit and private-sector growth.
Forson added that spending controls and new approval rules for state-owned enterprise (SOE) commitments helped cut government expenditure from 18.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 13.5 percent within a year. Over the same period, he said, non-oil GDP growth rose from 6.1 percent to 7.6 percent.
Both officials pointed to new fiscal rules and central bank law amendments curbing monetary financing of deficits as evidence that the policy framework has fundamentally changed.
“The goal is simple. Stability that lasts,” Forson said.
