Parliament approves GH¢16.8 billion for govt's 2014 statutory obligations
Parliament has approved GH¢16,829,806,546 for the payment of commitments and other government financial obligations for 2014.
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The commitments and other government obligations include domestic and external interest payments, pensions, gratuities, social security, subsidies on petroleum, District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF), National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) and the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund).
The rest are the Road Fund, petroleum related fund, transfer to Ghana National Petroleum corporation (GNPC), lifeline consumers of electricity, tax expenditure (exemptions), tax refunds, non-road arrears, amortisation, Petroleum Fund and Contingency Fund.
For 2014, Ghana is to pay GH¢5,202,787 as interest on its domestic loans and GH¢975,810,000 as interest on its external loans while GH¢1,629,450,350 will be paid as pensions, gratuities and social security with petroleum subsidies attracting GH¢50 million.
Under transfer to other government units, the DACF will get GH¢1,369,764,728, NHIF, GH¢926,610,508, GETFund- GH¢739,447,239, Road Fund, GH¢226,732,850, Petroleum Related Fund, GH¢5,731,046 and transfer to GNPC, GH¢423,742,044.
Government is expected to pay GH¢48,531,656 to support lifeline consumers of electricity, GH¢864,295,600 as tax expenditure (exemptions), GH¢231,727,496 as arrears to contractors, GH¢2,584,465,519 as non-road arrears, GH¢407,022,568 as tax refund, GH¢1,074,656,000 as amortisation and GH¢69,030,956 as Petroleum and Contingency Fund.
Outstanding payments
The Finance Committee of Parliament reported to the House that the government was yet to pay an outstanding GH¢151.1 million into the NHIF while outstanding payment to the GETFund stood at GH¢230 million.
Outstanding payment to the DACF as of September, 2013 stood at GH¢449 million and social security payments were also in arrears to the tune off GH¢695 million.
The Minister of Finance, Mr Seth Terkper, however, explained that the 2014 Budget allocated about GH¢1.5 billion to help government pay all outstanding commitments and arrears to the statutory funds.
Commenting on the situation, some Members of Parliament(MPs) urged the minister to ensure that all the outstanding payments were made in time since the continuous delay in their payments was negatively affecting the efficient functioning of those funds.
Transfers from the Stabilisation Fund
Government intends to transfer GH¢96,678,201 from the Ghana Stabilisation Fund for its activities in 2014, out of which GH¢50 million would be used to set up a Contingency Fund pursuant to the provisions of Article 117 and 179 of the Constitution.
It is the intention of the government to transfer the remaining GH¢46,678,201 from the Ghana Stabilisation Fund to start a sinking fund which would be used for debt servicing.
The committee lauded the government for the proposal to create the Contingency and Sinking funds and urged the Minister of Finance to ensure that the funds when created, would not suffer delay payments.