Minority threatens to vote against 2021 Budget Statement

The Minority in Ghana's Parliament has given strong warnings of its willpower to ballot against the 2021 Budget Statement and Economic Policies of the NPP Government if what it describes as misreporting is not rectified.

At a media briefing in Parliament, Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu accused the Finance Minister of reporting inaccurate figures of the economy of the budget statement.

"We noted some misreporting, misclassifications and below the line treatment of some Government expenditure which is deliberately misreported in order to project a good performance of the economy when in fact the true situation is not as rosy,” he stressed.

According to him, whereas the Minister stated 4.8 percent as the deficit in the Budget presented to Parliament, the Ministry reported a deficit of 7 percent to the IMF, the World Bank, and other International Agencies.

“We have always cautioned against below the line fiscal maneuvers by the Nana Akufo-Addo government because it has a tendency to give a wrong impression of good effort as fiscal consolidation when the fact doesn’t support that.”

“So the economy by the Nana Akufo-Addo government reports a fiscal deficit of 4.8 percent. The same economy is reported by the International Monetary Fund of 7.5 percent fiscal deficit.”

“This economic dishonesty, we do not find acceptable.”

New Taxes

The Tamale South MP noted that his side of the legislature finds the timing for the imposition of the new taxes problematic and unwarranted.

Haruna emphasized that a time when Ghanaians are experiencing hardship due to the already harsh economic situation imposed on them by the Nana Addo-Bawumia Government, it’s proposing to introduce further draconian and harsh taxes that will ultimately increase the prices of goods and services and thereby exacerbate the hardship the ordinary Ghanaian.

Already this Government has increased the prices of petroleum products by over 11 percent since the beginning of the year.

It is therefore unconscionable to attempt to impose additional levies on fuel prices at this critical moment.