Ghana could have collected an extra $15.78 billion in revenue in 2025 if it mobilised revenue as well as Botswana and almost half of that loss came from just one sector.

This was the key finding in a re-examination of Ghana's low government revenue mobilisation by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), presented by its Executive Director, Dr. Said Boakye.

"Ghana's total revenue to GDP ratio stands at only 15.7%, far below the Sub-Saharan Africa average of 20.1% and less than half of Botswana's 29.5%."

"Out of 25 African countries sampled, Ghana ranked a lowly 18th."

"In 2025, Ghana actually collected GH¢224.88 billion, equivalent to $17.91 billion,” he stated.

He added: "If it had collected at Botswana's rate, it would have collected GH¢423.76 billion or $33.69 billion a difference of $15.78 billion."

Dr. Boakye further noted that "the mining sector alone explains $6.56 billion of that gap”.

Expounding further in his presentation, IFS boss stressed "from 2019 to 2023, Ghana's mining value-added averagely $5.03 billion a year but the government collected only $729.6 million on average which is just 15% of the value created”.

He also established that "Botswana, by contrast, had a smaller mining sector, an average mining value-added of $2.81 billion , 44.1% smaller than Ghana's  yet it collected $1.72 billion, representing 60.9% of its mining value added”.

"In other words, Botswana earned 135.7% more from mining than Ghana, even though its mining sector was smaller."

"The picture was even worse in 2025 alone,” he exclaimed, emphasising that "Ghana's mining value added jumped to $13.4 billion but government earned only $1.6 billion, just 11.9%”.

"If we were to match Botswana's ratio, the government of Ghana would have earned a whopping $8.16 billion , instead of the $1.6 billion," Dr. Boakye also said.

"That extra $6.56 billion alone would have pushed Ghana's revenue-to-GDP ratio from 15.7% to 21.54%, already above the Sub-Saharan Africa average of 20.1%."

The difference, according to IFS, is not that Botswana's mines are more profitable. 

It is that the Botswana government is actively involved in mining, partnering private companies, the IFS asserted.

Because of that, the institution added, Botswana does not only earn corporate income tax and royaltie—it earns large dividends because it has insider knowledge of mining operations and profitability.

In Ghana, government has left extraction entirely to private companies on concession basis and therefore earns little in dividends and struggles to track real profits for royalties and corporate tax.

Dr. Boakye further said low revenue mobilisation is not just a statistic. 

To him, it means poor infrastructure, excessive borrowing, high debt service costs and low salaries for public sector workers.

"Ghana scored only 10.1 out of 100 in the 2025 IMD infrastructure ranking, compared to 28.3 for Botswana and 20.3 for South Africa."

"Despite its vast natural resource endowment, Ghana's per capita income stood at only $2,419 in 2020, compared to $4,502 for Namibia, $6,267 for South Africa and $7,650 for Botswana."

"You can invest in infrastructure, pay workers well to increase effective demand, and many other things," Dr. Boakye said of what high revenue mobilisation makes possible.

He disclosed that the IFS identified other main drivers of weak mobilisation namely revenue leakage through under reporting, tax evasion, tax avoidance and collusion. 

"In April 2025, the Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority revealed Ghana lost more than GH¢11 billion at the ports alone due to wrong declarations of origin, classification and valuation."

Dr. Boakye linked this to corruption saying "Ghana's political corruption score on the V-Dem index is 0.615, compared to 0.538 for South Africa, 0.274 for Namibia and 0.204 for Botswana".

"Ghana has as many as 31 income tax, customs and financial incentive packages, according to the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre."

"These include 10 years income tax holidays in Free Zones, 100% exemption on import duties, and generous holidays for the automotive industry."

IFS recommends that government should get actively involved in the extractive sector by investing directly and partnering private investors like Botswana or use production-sharing agreements if it cannot raise the funds itself.

To fund it, government may have to temporarily scale down traditional public investment like infrastructure and redirect funds into the extractive sector, so more money can be raised later.

Dr. Boakye concluded: "Ghana does not need to discover new resources. It needs to collect what it is already owed from the resources it has."