IMF Suggests Ghana Raise Taxes on Miners

The International Monetary Fund told officials of Ghana, Africa's second-largest gold producer, that they should consider hiking taxes on the mining sector to boost revenue.

In a statement released Tuesday by the IMF, Christina Daseking, IMF mission head to Ghana concluded a visit last summer to Ghana by encouraging the Bank of Ghana to further build up its foreign reserve buffer, while carefully managing the impact on domestic liquidity and allowing some adjustments in the exchange rate in response to market forces.

The IMF team said it intends to return in the fall of 2011 to take another look at how Ghana is doing.

Going forward, close coordination between fiscal and monetary policy will remain important to avoid a reemergence of high inflation and an associated erosion of real incomes, which particularly harms the poor, Daseking said in a statement.