Mr Kwasi Amoako-Attah, the Minister for Roads and Highways, attributed the Ministry’s affected infrastructure projects to the country’s uncertain financial situation.
He explained that the situation had made it difficult for the Ministry to repair the many deplorable roads.
Mr Amoako-Attah, who said this when he appeared before Parliament’s Government Assurances Committee bemoaned the failure of the contentious E-levy to rake in the expected revenue.
As a result, Mr Amoako-Attah insisted that if Ghanaians had supported the tax measure, more roads would have been fixed across the country.
“One of the key areas of the E-Levy was the road sector. So, if it had been, for instance, supported it could have helped,” he said.
When pressed by members of the committee if he had received all his allocations in the 2022 budget, the Roads and Highways Minister admitted that the Finance Ministry had not released all the amount due to the Ministry.
He, however, told the Committee that the issue of unreleased budgetary allocation was not peculiar to the government only.
Fresh data from the Finance Ministry showed a significant shortfall in revenue from taxes.
The data indicated that the government raked in less than seven per cent of its e-levy target.
The E-Levy was initially expected to rake in GH¢6.9 billion by the end of 2022 of which it was revised significantly to GH¢4.5 billion.
Information from the Ministry’s provisional data span in the first and second quarters of 2022 reported that it has collected GH¢92.7 million.
Comparing the amount raised (GH¢93.7 million) to the initial target (6.9 billion) indicated that a percentage of 6.4 per cent had been raked.
Ghana is currently going through a tough phase when it comes to finances.
Following this, the government has been at the doors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to save the economy from a meltdown.
