Financial analyst, Sydney Casely-Hayford has labeled Ghana’s 2016 budget as a “Kwaku Ananse story.”
His comment comes after the Minority in Parliament described it as a “dead goat budget.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”D06i2rtAXCLIxzSK0cvFoXOXwweAPzWE”]According to Casely-Hayford, the document the Finance Minister presented to Parliament does not constitute a budget saying “to me it is simply a story.”
“This thing for me has become like a Kwaku Ananse story which is what we are dealing with,” he added.
The financial analyst while speaking on Citi FM‘s news analysis programme, The Big Issue, explained that the budget does not give cogent solutions to transform Ghana’s ailing economy adding that “I expected detailed pragmatic solutions to how we are going to turn around the main problem which we have, which is that we constantly have deficit budgeting.”
He said the “deficit budgeting is as a result of a short fall in our revenue base and an over increase in our expenditures. For me it’s all about the fiscal, forget about the macro stuff, I tell you that the macro indicators are a simple reflection of the micro stuff.”
Casely-Hayford further stressed that Mr. Terkper should have explained “how we can get more revenues into the system, how are we going to be able to raise additional income to be able to fix the infrastructure deficit that we have and to grow the economy.”
The Minister of Finance last Friday presented to Parliament the 2016 budget.
He among other things assured that government will resist the temptation to overspend in election year, 2016.
He also said per measures put in place by government, he was hopeful that the economy will also grow at a rate of 4.1 percent by December 2015, compared to an initial projection of 3.5 percent.
“There are clear signs that our consolidation efforts are yielding positive results making the economy more efficient. Accordingly, the Ghana Statistical Service estimates that GDP will grow at 4.1% at the end of 2015 compared to the 3.5% initially projected. The World Bank, the IMF and others estimate future growth above 7%”.
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana