The Akufo-Addo Administration should not have expected to inherit a surplus budget from the Mahama administration, Bolgatanga Central MP, Isaac Adongo has said.
Such assertions, the MP argued on Eyewitness News, were indicative of a lack of understanding of public finance.
[contextly_sidebar id=”58umpGyiLcgFRECrQYj3sMMISkJlPDEq”]His comments on the matter followed President Nana Akufo-Addo recent lamentation over the “huge debts” and “empty coffers” his government came to meet.
President Akufo-Addo, as far back as his first State of the Nation address, has stressed that his administration did not inherit a stable economy from the erstwhile Mahama-led government, which missed all the targets set for the country under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme due to fiscal indiscipline in the management of public funds.
Mr. Adongo, in response to the President’s comments, said the Akufo-Addo administration should be looking for innovative ways to generate the revenue instead of complaining.
“If it was that when you inherit a government, then you are coming to meet a pile of money, then there is no business being in government because you simply are coming to do nothing. No government comes to inherit the coffers with money. Even in the United States of America, you come to meet deficits that are being run by the government.”
“For a President to say he met an empty coffer; since when did a President ever come to meet money and spend that money in the development of a country.”
We’ve spent more than we generate
The MP argued further that because of the challenges of the third world country like Ghana, there is always a dichotomy between the resources the country has and the enormous challenges of nation building that require “you will have to spend more than you generate.”
“What the President is asking for is that he should have come to meet a government that is running a surplus budget and building buffers of money for him to then use and spend and I am saying that would be almost irrational to consider a country such as Ghana… to have surplus money sitting there for Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo to now come and be sleeping at the Flagstaff House and be spending money because the money is available.”
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana