News:
December 10, 2015
Parliament Wednesday approved the 2016 Budget and Financial Policy Statement of the Government of Ghana for the year ending December 31, 2016.
The legislature has for the past two weeks been debating the motion for the adoption of the budget which was moved in the House by the Finance Minister, Seth Terkper, on November 13, 2015.
While Members on the Minority side shot down the budget for lacking clear-cut policies to address the numerous challenges confronting the country, those on the Majority side contended that the document was a well thought out plan meant to put the nation on the path to economic growth.
Minority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, in contributing to the motion described the budget statement as a document which was full of perspiration but with little inspiration in that the country is now choked with high inflation, depreciation of the cedi against major trading currencies on the world market, especially, the US Dollar, erratic power supply among others.
But the Majority Leader, Alban Sumana Bagbin in a sharp response said the Financial Policy of the Government of Ghana for the year ending December 31, 2016, “is good for the people of Ghana.”
“I strongly believe that the 2016 Financial Policy will take us a step forward in our quest as a country to achieve a just and free society as enjoined by the directive principles of state policy enshrined in Chapter 6 of the 1992 Constitution.”
Terkper in rounding up the debate told the House that Ghana’s growth rate at its worst point is even higher than the Sub-Saharan African as well as global average.
“Ghana’s growth rate at its worst point is higher than most of the advanced countries even though the structures of most of the economies differ,” he added.
He said for the first time, the country’s progress towards consolidation has never been reversed.