News:
April 1, 2017
Parliament has approved almost GHS 65 billion for government expenditure this year.
The green light for expenditure was given when the House passed the Appropriation Bill late in the evening Friday.
The amount which will be issued from the Consolidated Fund and withdrawals from other funds will cover expenditure allocation for all MDAs and other government institutions.
Speaking before the passage of the bill, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrissu lashed out at government for reducing budgetary allocations to some state institutions.
“Mr. Speaker, this government justifiably can be in a hurry, but not overspeeding. With this comments, Mr. Speaker, they can proceed more cautiously particularly in the era of earmark and capping of funds. That if distressed hospitals, Universities and educational institutions like Pantang and Psychiatric hospitals begin to yell in tears, we’ll ask the Minister to provide a handkerchief for us to wipe the tears.”
Responding to the criticisms of the minority leader, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, explained that the move was to provide more resources to government to prioritize programmes.
“Mr. Speaker, the motivation and object of the re-alignment and capping is to primarily reduce Budget rigidities and provide government the opportunity to channel resources to priority programmes and activities as part of measures to meet broad government development objectives. In doing so we have ensured, through the earmarked funds, capping and re-alignment Act, the allocations, amounts, shares to earmarked funds stipulated in the constitution are protected.”