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President John Dramani Mahama says the recent increase in taxes and levies is part of moves to tackle the rising rate of inflation and reduce the country�s high budget deficit. Parliament on Friday, passed a new Bill, increasing the VAT threshold from the current 12.5 percent to 15 percent. Speaking during a working visit to the Volta Region, President John Mahama expressed the hope that the country�s economic situation will improve by next year. According to him, �government has done all things possible in terms of raising revenue and reducing expenditure.� �If you are running a deficit in your family budget, what you must do is that you must reduce expenditure and you must raise revenue. If you see all the little things, the taxes and levies that we have put in place and at the same time we are trying to hold expenditure so releases to MDA�s are not going on and so forth, it is in an attempt to cure the deficit, �the President maintained. President John Mahama also announced that cabinet meetings will be held in the various regions beginning in from next year. �Next year, we will develop a programme where cabinet will be effective in the regions. Every other month, we will also move cabinet to one region and we will hold cabinet meetings in regions and after that we will inspect development projects and deal with challenges in the regions,� the President added.