Election year expenditure won’t balloon - Dr Mensah-Abrampa discloses ahead of Graphic Business/Stanbic Bank breakfast meeting
Senior Advisor to the Minister of Planning, Dr Kodjo Esseim Mensah-Abrampa, has said that the government’s election year budget will not lead to the huge budget deficit that usually characterises election year budgets.
He said the 2020 budget would be devoted to huge infrastructure development going by the plan and vision of the government.
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Speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic ahead of the Graphic Business/Stanbic Bank breakfast meeting, he said “2020 will be devoted to infrastructure because that is the plan.
In an election year, what causes excess expenditure is the huge spending on infrastructure so that people can visibly see what the government has done, but the good thing is that ours have been planned for, so it will not lead to excess spending.”
“What is expected to be done in an election year will just coincide with the plan of the government,” he stated.
Different pattern
Commenting on excessive spending in election years, he said the government had anticipated that and, therefore initiated a different pattern all together.
“The vision of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo includes the transformation of the economy, stabilising the economy, modernising agriculture, transforming the industrial sector and improving infrastructure.
“If you look at the first year of this government, the emphasis was on stabilising the macro economy and, therefore, many things were done to get the fiscal indicators right.
In addition to that, the government initiated some social programmes to reduce the burden on people which included the free senior high school,” he noted.
At that same time, he said the government realised that one of the key things pushing inflation up had to do with agriculture production, where there was low agriculture production and huge demand for food, leading to higher inflation.
“So there was emphasis through the ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ programme to ensure the availability of food.”
Containing social programmes
Dr Mensah-Abrampa pointed out that the government in the second year made allowance to be able to contain some of its social programmes because the free SHS was entering its second year, which required more funding.
“Once the economy stabilised and we rolled out the social programmes, we then looked at other areas which included the energy sector to support the industrial sector.
In the third year, we really wanted to firm up the macro situation and this required that we must get the financial sector right to create the space and the predictable situation for the private sector,” he stated.
He said the fourth year would focus on huge infrastructure development.
“This is not a picture that I am caving but something that was planned for in the government’s vision and is being implemented,” he said.
Breakfast meeting
The Graphic Business/ Stanbic Bank breakfast meeting will be held on Monday, October 7, 2019.
The meeting, which is on the theme: ‘Election cycles, democratic governance and fiscal stability’, will have speakers such as Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Ghana, Professor Eric Osei-Assibey; a Senior Technical Advisor to the Minister of Planning, Dr Kodjo Esseim-Abrampa, and Associate Professor at the University of Ghana Business School, Professor Godfrey Alufar Bokpin.
