Looking for a more pragmatic way to consolidate progress
Yesterday, the Minister of Finance, Mr Seth Terkper, on the authority of President John Mahama, presented the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana for the 2016 Financial Year, to Parliament.
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The usual heckling by the Minority in Parliament was at play during the over two hour presentation of the budget, which had the theme, “Consolidating progress towards a brighter medium term.”
By its theme, the 2016 budget will seek to consolidate the gains that have already been made by the government in the various sectors of the economy, which in itself is not a bad thing.
While the announcement by the Minister of Finance that the government would be careful not to overspend during the 2016 election is good news, we believe that it is no secret that the government’s finances are already overstretched and there are not enough funds to go round all the sectors, let alone channel some to the upcoming elections.
As Mr Terkper himself alluded to during his presentation, the annual real GDP growth from 2008 to 2015 showed a decrease from 9.1 per cent to 4.8 per cent, peaked to 14 per cent in 2012 and then began its descent to 4.1 per cent, which should worry any economy manager.
Although the Finance Minister tried to assuage the fears of Ghanaians by submitting that provisional data showed the industry sector would be the highest growth performer among the main sectors in 2015 with an expected growth outturn of 9.1 per cent, it is clear that production levels have gone down as shown by the fallen GDP.
We believe that the government has done a lot to deal with the issues that have become an anathema to the citizens of the country such as the energy challenge that has been christened dumsor, and which has in turn worsened unemployment, brought about rising cost of living, and the failing strength of the cedi against the world’s major currencies, among other challenges.
Obviously, the efforts of the government have not been enough to completely deal with the challenges, which have been compounded by tariff increases that have been made regularly without corresponding salary adjustments and non-payment of allowances to some public workers.
Of course, it is these and many more that have resulted in multiple strikes, demonstrations and picketing by a large array of workers’ groups all through the year because it was difficult for them to make ends meet.
While we appreciate the government’s efforts in trying to satisfy every sector of the economy in every budget, including the 2016 budget, we believe that the time has come for the government to prioritise its budgetary allocations to the various sectors for real consolidation of the gains in those sectors.
Instead of trying to share the scarce resources among all sectors, which would end up as just a drop in the ocean and so have no impact, we urge the government to strategise and streamline its budgetary allotment to key sectors that would definitely impact on the well-being of the people.