Financial analyst and Editor of the Financial Post newspaper, Toma Imihere has rubbished assurances from the government that it will resist the temptation to overspend on its budget next year.
Several governments have failed to remain within the budgetary limits especially in election years, which has led to suggestions that John Dramani Mahama’s administration will do the same ahead of the 2016 polls.
[contextly_sidebar id=”vzVt4cKjYQByqnuR1cxcaIdSmbeMPzbr”]In his delivery of the budget for 2016 in Parliament on Friday, Finance Minister, Seth Terkper, sought to assure Ghanaians that the government would not exceed the stated limits.
“We will resist the temptation of election-year overspending” he told Parliament.
However, when asked on Citi FM‘s news analysis programme The Big Issue whether government could hold on to the assurance, Toma Imihere said: “[The overspending] will come. Government will be pressured into overspending by the opposition. If they don’t overspend they will be made to look like they are just insensitive to the plight of the electorate.”
The financial analyst dismissed the assurances by Seth Terpker, stating that successive governments had promised the same thing and failed to deliver.
He said that the consistent overspending by government in election year would continue in 2016 despite the Finance Minister’s comments.
“In 2004, did we not hear the refrain of we’ll not overspend? In 2008, did we not hear the refrain of we’ll not overspend? In 2012, the worst case so far, did we not hear the same thing? Please.”
“I worked for a politician in the Rawlings era and he told me that he doesn’t know why we believe politicians when they make promises when even we ourselves don’t believe our own promises,” he added.
By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana