Ghana’s Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has revealed that the government plans to raise funds internally to support electoral activities across the country for the general elections in 2020.
The Minister explained that this decision is in line with the government’s “Ghana Beyond Aid agenda”. He said this means the government will not be soliciting for support from donor partners to carry out its statutory obligations like the running of elections.
He was speaking to the media after Cabinet’s 64th regular meeting and 9th retreat at Peduase in the Eastern Region. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah explained that this means it is key to mobilize enough domestic revenue to fulfil the statutory obligations.
“In other statutory obligations for the year, particularly on elections, it will be carried out within the national resource envelope. This is a critical feature of the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda. What all of this means is that we ourselves have to look at all these obligations and fund them. The days that we have to be relying on donor partners to execute some of these critical national obligations are over. It falls squarely within our ambits and what that means is that the generation of our internal resources to meet those obligations is key.”
Ghana usually depends on donor partners and central government to fund parliamentary, presidential and local assembly elections.
People have often called for the Electoral Commission (EC) to introduce special taxes to fund elections in the country.
But the EC Chair, Jean Mensa has said that the ordinary Ghanaian is already overburdened and another tax will just increase the burden.
“In Ghana, it is the government of Ghana that funds our election in its totality. So I do not think that the imposition of election tax will be something that the people of Ghana will take lightly because we are already over-taxed. And you know that we do have a lot of resources and with efficient management, we should be able to fund our elections,” she said recently.
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