Economist, Prof John Gatsi, has revealed that the performance of government has generally been abysmal, especially with its conduct of economic affairs of the country.
According to him, government has been unable to meet most of its targets such as a growth of 2.8% in real GDP inclusive of oil, 3.0% in real GDP non-oil, among others, captured in the 2023 budget.
He indicated that with such indicators the finance minister, is expected to present strategies in the 2024 budget to improve upon those indicators and meet targets that have been set, especially for 2024 being a crucial year.
“It is not something that we should shy away, the performance has been abysmal, the performance is not encouraging, we are aggravating some of the situation and we need to work very hard to open up domestic debt markets and free up concentration on the treasury bill; that is very significant…”
Prof John Gatsi
Commenting on his expectations for the 2024 budget, Prof Gatsi stated that government must necessarily be thorough in the 2024 budget. He highlighted the need that most of the expenditure for 2024 election should not find its way into the budget.
With this, Prof Gatsi emphasized that government must be careful and critical with things that feature into the budget, whether they are in real terms things that should be undertaken or are just there for vote-buying.
“So, that is what we should be doing in the 2024 budget that will be read to us tomorrow. It is clear we have not met those projections, what is needed is the explanation to why we couldn’t meet them and what we need to do to meet them in 2024 – that is critical.”
Prof John Gatsi
Calls for commitment of government to revive economy
Furthermore, Prof Gatsi emphasized that government must equally work assiduously to ensure the downward trend in inflation translates into improvement in other areas. He revealed that government shouldn’t just be churning out information that will not have a reflection on the people.
“If you read Article 36 of the constitution, it is very clear, the intent on any economic outcome is to make the people happy and cater for the vulnerable in society. You see what happened in the dam spillage, the state is anemic, it’s not able to own the situation and cater for the vulnerable. So, these are issues that we need to be looking at and measuring the performance of a government.”
Prof John Gatsi
Meanwhile, the Food and Beverages Association of Ghana (FABAG) has urged the government to introduce policies that will address the concerns of businesses in the private sector in the 2024 budget.
President of FABAG, John Awuni, underscored that though the private sector plays a pivotal role in the country’s growth, it was currently underperforming because of high taxation and tariff rates.
“Our expectation is that they will come out with policies that will address the private sector’s needs. We have said that the private sector is the engine of growth, but it appears that the private sector is not performing well due to high levels of taxation, due to high levels of tariff reviews.”
John Awuni
Moreover, Mr Awuni highlighted that the association expects that there will be major policies that will address the manufacturing and agricultural sectors in the country.
Additionally, he urged government to remove the COVID-19 levy from its tax imposition schemes.
“We expect that the growth and sustainability levy will be removed. We expect that taxes that were also imposed on fruit juices, alcoholic beverages, and others will be removed.”
John Awuni
The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, is scheduled to present the government’s 2024 Annual Budget Statement and Economic Policy to Parliament on Wednesday, November 15, 2023.
Ahead of the presentation, there have been calls for the government to significantly reduce its expenditure to rescue the struggling economy.
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