Ghana Parliament debates mid-year review of 2014 Budget

 

Ghana Parliament has begun a debate on the mid-year review of the 2014 Budget presented on Wednesday by Mr Seth Terkper, Minister of Finance.

The Majority in Parliament noted that the mid-year review reflected the efforts of the Government to accelerate the development of the nation, but the Minority said Government’s request for more than three billion dollars was indication of a weak economy.

In his contribution, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, Minister Designate for Employment and Labour Relations, and Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale South, was optimistic that the economy would bounce back because Government was putting in place pragmatic measures.

He said though the performance of industry had not been the best due to erratic power supply, the intervention measures being pursued by the Government would help address the problem.

To help alleviate poverty, the Government, he said, intended using part of the US$1.5billion Chinese loan to support the Youth Enterprise Development Fund.

Mr Iddrisu said development partners had not been fair to the Government in terms of the disbursement of support to help the economy.

Mr Abdul-Rashid Hassan Pelpuo, Minister of State and MP for Wa Central, said the Government should be commended for boldly confronting the challenges in the economy other than the NPP that failed to confront the challenges and took the country to HIPC.

Mr Kwaku Kwarteng, MP for Obuasi West and Member of the Finance Committee, noted that the strategies by the Government to address the challenges in the economy were old recycled measures.

He said the Minister of Finance only provided Ghanaians with bad news.

“Mr Speaker, the summary of all these is that the economy is much more troubled than the government imagined at the time the minister presented strategies for us to approve. So, obviously, those strategies have failed,” Mr Kwarteng said.

Mr Kwarteng described as more shocking the Government’s demand for a supplementary budget, painting a gloomy picture.

He said the expectation of the economy to generate jobs for the rest of the year would be much slower than imagined with an expected decline in the growth rate of goods and services.

That notwithstanding, the country is expected to overspend her means by GH¢1.6billion with tax revenue also expected to slump by 16.3 per cent while the strength of the cedi against major international trading currencies is also expected to continue to fall.

Furthermore, Mr Kwarteng said interest payments were also expected to rise because of the Government’s continuous borrowing attitude from both domestic and international markets.

He advised the Government to ensure that the rates of corruption at some state institutions were reduced to the barest minimum if not totally eliminated.

This, he said, would save the country some money to pursue developmental projects that would inure to the benefit of her people.

Professor George Yaw Gyan-Baffour, MP for Wenchi, said the three billion Ghanaian cedis supplementary budget being pursued by the Government was meaningless, explaining, “it will not in any way improve the well-being of the citizens of this country."

“Mr Speaker, it tells us that life is going to be very difficult for Ghanaians. All the economic indicators are trending in very dangerous deficits. Our growth rate is projected to decline from 8% to 7.1%, even with oil.

“If you take oil out, it will even drop to 6.6% which implies that the almighty oil is only growing at 0.5%. This is very disturbing. Prices of goods and services will continue to increase by the day.

Inflation, according to the Minister, will rise to about 16% and government will continue to overspend, increasing the budget deficit from 8.5% to 8.8% despite all the claims of fiscal prudence and Better Ghana. Mr Speaker, this supplementary budget is a needless exercise,” he said.

(GNA)