As Ghana’s Finance Minister prepares to present the 2025 Mid-Year Budget Review to Parliament, economist Dr. Paul Appiah Konadu is calling for urgent and massive reforms in revenue mobilization while it reins in expenditure.
Ahead of the mid-year review, the economist at the Pentecost University in Accra says the country’s persistent budget deficits stem from fiscal irresponsibility and an overdependence on narrow tax bases, while obvious revenue opportunities go untapped.
The mid-year review is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday, July 24, 2025. The economist is expectant that the review will prioritize how the government will increase its revenue in the second part of the year while putting expenditure under control.
Fiscal Irresponsibility Must End
Dr. Appiah Konadu tells The High Street Journal that Ghana’s continued fiscal slippage and budget overruns leading to budget deficits are highly unacceptable. For him it is unacceptable that, year after year, the country is running budget deficits.
The economist says that is a mark of irresponsibility on the part of Ghana.
“At the individual level, if you’re spending more than your income, you’re called irresponsible. Ghana has become irresponsible in how we spend,” he stated.
He argued that billions of cedis are lost through inefficient spending and wastage. “A lot of the money goes down the drain,” he added, stressing the need for the 2025 mid-year review to reflect a decisive break from past practices of weak expenditure discipline and low domestic revenue effort.
Scrapping of Betting Tax: A Missed Opportunity
Dr. Appiah Konadu criticized the government’s recent decision to eliminate the betting tax, calling it a missed opportunity to raise revenue from harmful behavior.
He argues that betting is a negative behavior, and he is firmly convinced that maintaining the tax would have been in the best interest of the state. He says that while the betting tax would have controlled negative behaviour, it would have also generated some revenue for the state.
This, he says, was a low-hanging fruit, arguing that such levies are not only revenue tools but also moral nudges.
Unlocking Property Rates Could Add Over GH¢10 Billion
Citing a 2021 study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Dr. Appiah Konadu emphasized that Ghana is sitting on a goldmine of uncollected property taxes. He says the study projected that property rates could raise about GH¢5 billion in 2021, adding that by 2025, that potential could have soared to over GH¢10 billion.
He bemoaned the lack of structural systems to collect these funds effectively. “Every year, we hear about property rates in the budget, but nothing happens. Meanwhile, the real estate sector is booming,” he said, urging the government to design concrete, enforceable mechanisms to capture value from Ghana’s growing urban infrastructure.
Real Estate and Rent Taxation Must Be Reimagined
Beyond property rates, Dr. Appiah Konadu called for smarter taxation of rental properties. “Go to Kumasi and other urban centers; one-bedroom self-contained apartments are going for around $1,000. Even a 10% tax on rent would rake in substantial revenue,” he suggested.
He added that taxing rent equitably and efficiently would not only widen the tax net but also introduce more fairness in how the country distributes its tax burden.
Time to Tap the Informal Sector
Dr. Appiah Konadu also called attention to the large and often neglected informal sector.
“We are always burdening the formal sector, especially the energy sector, with heavy taxes. Meanwhile, artisans, masons, carpenters, and even foreign workers like some Togolese artisans are earning good money,” he said.
He urged the government to formalize this segment of the economy and bring its activities into the tax net in ways that are simple, fair, and enforceable.
Dr. Appiah Konadu insists the mid-year budget must shift focus away from overtaxing a few sectors and instead expand the base through innovative but realistic reforms.
With high expectations for the 2025 Mid-Year Budget Review, the pressure is on the Finance Ministry to prove that Ghana can be both fiscally responsible and strategically creative.
