Members of Parliament have started debate on the 2024 annual budget stament presented on the floor of the House by Ken Ofori Ata, the Finance Minister.
Members of Parliament on the Minority side of the House justified why the budget cannot solve the economic hardships Ghanaians are going through.
Ranking Member for Finance, Issac Adongo was disappointed that his colleagues from the Majority were only twenty-three in number despite the fact that the budget is the economic policy from their side of the House and asked that if they are not interested in the budget they should make that known.
He was disappointed that the Finance Minister told Ghanaians to celebrate a projected GDP of one trillion Ghana cedis; it’s just a promise the Majority side have not delivered any promise, “go and tell the Euro Bond holders the things you promise them you have not been able to achieve them”.
Again, you said your growth would be 2.8 even when you are cooking the numbers you are not smart about it since when did we use nominal GDP to assess the performance of the economy; it was done during the stone age.
He queried if their colleagues from the Majority side would prefer John Mahama’s economy when they were taking kalipo for fifty pesewas to where they would now be paying six cedis.
He agrees with the Minister when he said they have impacted Ghanaians and households but stated that that impact is negative when he registered a growth of 0.4 percent and kept a lot of people at home.
“And he impacted us negatively when in 2017 he introduced thirty-two new taxes. Where have you reached with the E-Levy? Mr. Speaker, they impacted us negatively when they had double digit inflation, 15 percent in 2020, 12.1 percent in 2021 and 11. 8 percent in 2022; that is disastrous economic management.
Mr. Speaker when we are finding solutions do deal with the economy when they leave office and the former President John Mahama is promising a twenty four hour economy, someone who has disappointed the people of Ghana who said 1V1D and one million for each constituency which I am still waiting for. “He said John Mahama does not understand the twenty four hours economy. With all due respect Dr. Bawumia learnt economics at O- Level to PhD, no currency can depreciate to one hundred percent”.
He was not enthused that Dr. Bawumia after thirty years of studying economics and leading the country’s economic management team has this abysmal record, saying “this is the economy he has left us. When he has left issue on the economy and concentrating on digitalization, how would he understand the economy?” He queried,
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com
