Accra: Stakeholders have called for urgent tax reforms to address gender inequalities, warning that Ghana's heavy reliance on indirect taxes disproportionately affects low-income households and workers, particularly women, pushing many into poverty.
According to Ghana News Agency, the stakeholders, led by the Network for Women's Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT) and Tax Justice Network Africa, praised Ghana for passing the Affirmative Action (Gender Equity) Act, 2024 (Act 1121) in September 2024. However, they expressed concern over the three-decade gap between the passage of the country's gender affirmative budgeting in the 1990s-built on the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action-and the implementation of the recent Act, highlighting the need for reforms to tackle current challenges.
These observations were made at the conclusion of a two-day conference on promoting tax justice and combating illicit financial flows (IFFs) for inclusive and gender-equitable development, held in Accra from October 28-29. The conference called for urgent reforms and brought together representatives from civil society organizations, women's rights groups, trade unions, academia, development partners, and some representatives from government institutions, including the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Parliament.
Organized as part of the Phase Three of the Scaling Up Tax Justice Project-a partnership between NETRIGHT Ghana and Tax Justice Network Africa aimed at advancing progressive taxation-the stakeholders urged the government to address structural gender inequalities in taxation and fiscal policies. They emphasized the need to lessen the burden on low-income earners, women, and Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) across the country.
Madam Patricia Blankson Akakpo, Head of Secretariat at NETRIGHT Ghana, delivered the communique after the conference. She noted that such reforms would ensure a fair, transparent, and accountable tax system necessary for achieving Ghana's economic growth aspirations, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She highlighted the current tax regime's heavy reliance on indirect taxes and levies on goods and services, which disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, and called on the government to include corrective measures in the 2026 budget.
"While domestic resource mobilisation has improved, Ghana's mobilisation efforts are still insufficient to fund public investment in health, education, and social protection," Akakpo noted. She urged the government to strengthen domestic resource mobilisation efforts by implementing policies that ensure multinational companies and high-net-worth individuals meet their tax obligations.
Ms. Grace Arina, Feminist Tax Initiative Lead at Tax Justice Network Africa, speaking exclusively to the Ghana News Agency, explained that consumption taxes like the Value Added Tax (VAT) negatively impact women, especially those in the informal sector and living in poverty. "Women are more likely to spend a large portion of their income buying basic necessities which are subject to these taxes," Arina said, noting that pressure from fiscal constraints often increased reliance on such indirect taxes through austerity measures.
"Ghana was the first to implement gender affirmative budgeting in the 1990s. However, this took another 20 years to implement. It was implemented in 2024 with the passing into law of the Affirmative Action Bill," she said. Arina emphasized that the time lag was detrimental to women and urged the government to swiftly respond to the calls by civil society organizations for more gender-forward and gender-responsive policies for equitable and transformative development.
She called on all stakeholders to collaborate as a major step towards addressing the challenge, saying: "The onus is on the media to spread this information far and wide and ensure public awareness of the current issues. It's the duty of government to implement the policies advanced by civil society. We must collaborate and work together."