One major development challenge in Ghana is the lack of Domestic Revenue Generation Education. Majority of Ghanaians do not know they are obliged to pay tax, neither are they aware of how they can contribute to help generate revenue locally for development. This has resulted in deficiency of funds to support the education of impoverished youth in deprived communities of Ghana. The Ghana National Accounts put the GDP at GH¢42.065 billion for 2009, which indicates that tax revenue/GDP ratio of 14% is far less than the 23% required of middle income countries (Budget Statement of Ghana, 2011). This means that revenue mobilization through taxes is very low indicating that many people are outside the tax bracket. Of about 7million workers in Ghana, only 1.5million are income tax payers.

1. Domestic Revenue Mobilization (DRM) Education
One major development challenge in Ghana is the lack of Domestic Revenue
Generation Education. Majority of Ghanaians do not know they are obliged to pay tax,
neither are they aware of how they can contribute to help generate revenue locally for
development. This has resulted in deficiency of funds to support the education of
impoverished youth in deprived communities of Ghana. This problem has contributed to
high illiteracy among impoverished youth in deprived communities of Ghana. UNESCO
report indicates that, illiteracy remains pervasive in Ghana particularly among women,
the poor and in underdeveloped regions. Estimates suggest that about 42% of the adult
population is illiterate and about 50% of Ghanaian women are illiterate, compared to
33% of men.
Most private sector organizations, particularly nongovernmental organizations (NGOS)
would want to be given the support needed to mobilize funds in their own way to
address this problem because:
 They will not be tax for supporting youth education
 They will be able to access the impacts of the projects they will initiate in the
community directly themselves.
 The private organizations are more likely to get the support of those communities
they will initiate these projects in compared to government.
 Further, private organization will be able to manage and controls their own
resources and decide how funds should be allocated.
 Also private organizations beliefs in community partnership as a way of
projecting their image in the community (corporate social responsibility).
Domestic revenue mobilization in Ghana has not been encouraging because of lack of
education. Most people in Ghana do not know they are expected to pay tax, particularly
those who run their own businesses and also those in deprived communities. Only few
people in Ghana pay. The rebasing of Ghana National Accounts put the GDP at
GH¢42.065 billion for 2009, which indicates that tax revenue/GDP ratio of 14% is far
less than the 23% required of middle income countries (Budget Statement of Ghana,

2. 2011). This means that revenue mobilization through taxes is very low indicating that
many people are outside the tax bracket. Of about 7million workers in Ghana, only
1.5million are income tax payers
Below is the proposed Project
 Domestic Revenue Mobilization Education. This project will focus on:
I. Education and campaign to inform business owners and deprived
community people on the need to pay taxes and levies.
II. Community education to highlight on ways they can contribute to support
youth education.
III. Organizing community-private businesses forums to highlight on how both
parties can team up to promote development, and support youth
education.
IV. Educating youth to encourage their parents to pay community taxes and
levies, by highlighting on what those monies are used for.
Below is the propose project activity system model

3. The above system model indicates that, the propose project will focused on tax
education in communities, form community DRM volunteer groups to support revenue
mobilization, leverage on youth as tax advocates, and further promote community
private organizations discussion forums as a way of encouraging community-private
organizations partnership for development. The alphabets A-P indicates the sub-
activities that will be undertaken to ensure the success of each of the proposed
activities. Lastly, all the activities in the system are connected to one another to ensure
the success of the project.
By: Joseph Asare
E-mail: asaredada@gmail.com
Website: www.asaasiamvision.org
References:
1. http://www.unesco.org/uil/litbase/?menu=13&programme=124.
2. http://ir.knust.edu.gh/bitstream/123456789/4313/1/Egyin%20K.%20Boakye.pdf