The government has rejected claims by Accra Brewery PLC (ABL) that Ghana’s revised excise duty regime on beer and stout threatens local manufacturing, investment and jobs.
The government also declined the brewer’s call for a two-year freeze on the new excise rates, insisting that the revised regime is intended to ensure that tax incentives are tied to verified local content.
The dispute follows concerns raised by ABL that the new rates could significantly increase the tax burden on locally produced beer, undermine investment and put up to 2,000 jobs across the beer value chain at risk.
The company also argued that the changes could give imported beer an unintended advantage over locally manufactured products and estimated the potential impact on its own budget at about $7.5 million under its FY27 implementation assumptions.
Under the revised Excise Act, the duty on locally manufactured beer with high local raw material content has increased from 10% to 25%, while the rate for mid-tier local-content beer has risen from 32.5% to 40%. The duty on imported beer remains at 47.5%.
In its rejoinder, however, the government said the sliding-scale system had not been abolished. It explained that producers in the highest local-content band would still enjoy a 22.5 percentage-point preferential margin below the standard rate.
According to government, the adjustment represents a reduction in the level of tax concession rather than a policy shift designed to favour imported beer.
The government said the review was prompted partly by Ghana Revenue Authority data showing that about 85% of qualifying local production was already being assessed under the highest concessionary band.
It added that field verification exercises conducted in the Northern and Volta Regions had also raised questions about whether raw materials such as cassava, maize, sorghum and millet were being sourced locally at the volumes claimed.
Government further disputed ABL’s estimates that the revised regime could cost 2,000 jobs and increase its financial burden by $7.5 million, describing the figures as unsubstantiated and not independently reproducible.
It also argued that a widely cited Oxford Economics estimate on employment in the sector had been applied to a narrower policy issue for which the figure was not directly relevant.
The government estimated that revenue forgone under the existing excise structure amounted to approximately GH¢1.75 billion between 2023 and 2025.
It maintained that it would not suspend legally enacted tax rates based on what it described as unquantified assertions.
However, government invited ABL to submit verifiable information, including supplier and aggregator records, employment data and financial reconciliations, for assessment by the Ministry of Finance and the Ghana Revenue Authority.
While indicating its willingness to engage stakeholders on the long-term design of the excise regime, government stressed that preferential treatment must increasingly be based on independently verified local content.
By:Rachael Djabakie