2014 Budget has neglected the poor — NDP

The National Democratic Party (NDP) says the 2014 budget has neglected poor communities and also does not outline any steps towards national productivity.

Decrying what it viewed as a paltry allocation made in the budget to millions of people in dire need in several communities, the NDP said, “In the 2014 budget statement, Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) and allocation to only five orphanages across the country add up to a ridiculous sum of GH¢₡43 million for over 10 million people in dire need of social intervention and leadership for secure livelihood.”

According to the party, the 2014 budget has woken impoverished communities to a shock, as their hopes have been dashed in an ‘illusory better Ghana’.

In a statement copied to the Daily Graphic, the NDP said “Unless a verifiable and practicable guarantee is established to clear the corruption spill, the 2014 budget shall remain business as usual to create all the funds, only for it to drain into the usual corruption spill.”

The NDP also said no programme could be identified in the communities that would provide hope for job creation, direction and leadership for any secure livelihood.

Adding to this, the party said the ordinary Ghanaian “is being unremorsefully fleeced in yet a two- and-a half per cent value-added tax that shall further worsen the already meagre purchasing power.”

The NDP accused the government of removing subsidies on petroleum and utilities without any mitigating counter- measures, thereby worsening the plight of impoverished communities “to whom a fraudulent better Ghana was promised.”

“A better Ghana is translated in the prescription of the 1992 Constitution as ‘all necessary steps to establish a sound and healthy economy whose underlying principles shall include the recognition that the most secure democracy is the one that assures the basic necessities of life for its people as a fundamental duty,’” the NDP said.