The Executive Chairman at AB & David Law, David Ofosu-Dorte has suggested that voter ID cards of citizens must be converted into bank accounts to help decrease the unbanked population in the country.
Delivering a public lecture titled “The 1992 Constitution: A Fundamental Law for our prosperity or a well-crafted guide for our economic doom” on Thursday, Ofosu-Dorte said several moves to increase the banking population to broaden the tax net have yielded no results.
He said one of the easiest ways to increase the tax net is to convert voter IDs and Mobile Money accounts of people without bank accounts into bank accounts to solve the problem.
“If we want to increase the banking population…we could convert voters IDs into bank accounts with zero accounts. It can be done because that is what Mauritius does. Instead of doing that, we have done things that have been detrimental to us,” Ofosu-Dorte said at the University of Professional Studies Law School in Accra (UPSA).
Mr Ofosu-Dorte added “we should not have used the E-levy as a means to tax Momo. We should have used momo as a basis for opening bank accounts for everybody to have a bank account to make it easy for GRA to track how much you earn and come after you.”
He said this would be an easier way to broaden the tax net and get more people to get a Tax Identification Numbers to rake in more revenue.
Mr Ofosu-Dorte also called for a limit that would prevent the government from piling more taxes on Ghanaians.
According to him, limiting the government from introducing more taxes would also prevent the government from recklessly spending and limit its appetite for borrowing.
He also predicted that Ghana’s economy may pick up in the next couple of years, but may eventually worsen if the government does not maintain fiscal discipline.
“Let’s remember that NDC had a haircut years ago for the banking sector only. This time round, there is haircut 2 which has affected other entities. We are likely to have a “head cut” the next time. Watch 2027 to 2029, if we continue what we are doing, we will be more broke than we are now.”
“The history is very clear, anytime you are declared the fastest-growing economy, five to seven years later, you will be back to the IMF. I do not blame the IMF for it. You will notice that it encourages borrowing, and it forces us to walk to the IMF for some discipline. The economy will stabilise by 2024, but if we keep doing what we are doing now, we will find ourselves in a situation where we are forced to borrow more.”
