The 2023 Budget and fiscal policy of government may miss the November 15th deadline.
The Minister of parliamentary Affairs, and leader of government business, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu told the media in parliament that though the Public Financial Management Act provides that the budget be provided to parliament latest by the 15th of November, the discussions that are ongoing with the IMF may affect the November 15th deadline.
According to him, his understanding is that the discussions will go into the first few days of next week around the 10th and the conclusions would have to be factored into the budget. It has to be present to cabinet for discussion all of which would take some time before it gets to parliament.
“I believe it is going to be quite difficult to submit to the 15th deadline; I don’t know, I’m only conjecturing, but if you want to do a tidy work, may you require to have some space to be able to do a tidy work”.
Asserts that these are not normal times, and it is important to do a tidy job to reposition the country. “Nothing should be done which would eventually become wishy-washy; we want to have the best to be able to uplift us from where we are as a country”.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu however assured that it would not be in breach if it comes after the 15th of November as the constitution provides that the last date of presentation should be 30th of November.
Dominic Shirimori/Ghanamps.com
He clarified that though the call for the removal of the Finance Minister was started by a group of eighty plus members of the Majority, the caucus meeting aligned with the perception of that group, “so it is no longer the course of that eighty plus group” and that it is the agenda of the entire caucus and they are having discussions on that.
Today, as we speak, from the PIAC report, in less than three months (one quarter), government has received over 8bn cedis from our petroleum resources. This is more than it projected for the whole year, so government is making super normal profits”, he emphasised.
The call, he noted, is significant because open defecation is measured taking into account the entire region and not only the Greater Kumasi area; and revealed that open defecation level in Ashanti Region has dropped to 6.1 following the interventions of the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area (GKMA) Sanitation and Water Project (SWP).
“The interesting thing was that we were able to get the people to change their behavior and attitude towards sanitation, we embarked on intense sensitization and various approaches were used with assistant of his behavior and communication expects a lot of strategy was used. What it means is that they engage the people themselves they use the Municipal Assemblies that have the mandate and they ensure that the people who are supposed to enforce the law are the ones on the ground who are known by the people. They are the people they use to promote the project and provided them with the adequate logistics to be able to do exactly what they were supposed to do”.
“I am confidence in the sense that, when you look at the 2020 elections both major parties manifesto was virtually the same, they were all talking about improving the environment and having sanitation Ministry, National Sanitation Authority. If you look at the approach and strategy they did not differ when it comes to sanitation”.
As the country prepares itself for its election in October 2023, the Ho West lawmaker is serving on the Community’s Parliament Legal and Human Right Committee and was part of an eight-member delegation selected by the Speaker to visit Liberia and assess the situation on early warning signals, and triggers of conflict ahead of campaigns towards the country’s October 2023 General Elections.
Speaking to the media after their closed-door meetings with these stakeholders, Mr. Bedzrah indicated that the team was in Liberia to ensure a sound environment for a peaceful General Election in 2023.