{"id":298397,"date":"2017-03-02T10:58:01","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T10:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=298397"},"modified":"2017-03-02T10:58:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T10:58:01","slug":"bawumia-storms-parliament-for-2017-budget-statement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=298397","title":{"rendered":"Bawumia storms Parliament for 2017 budget statement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is in Parliament to observe the Finance Minister\u2019s presentation of the first budget statement of the Akufo-Addo government for the year 2017.<\/p>\n<p>It is often not the usual occurrence for the President or even the Vice President to be present during a budget reading.<\/p>\n<p>But it appears that Dr. Bawumia, an economist, who is expected to make a huge impact in the government\u2019s vision to resuscitate the economy, will not just be an observer, but an active participant in the economic transformation process.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-298411 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Bawumia-new-1.jpg\" alt=\"bawumia-new-1\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-298404 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Bawumia-2.jpg\" alt=\"bawumia-2\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Dr. Bawumia had repeatedly criticized the previous NDC administration for running down the economy through inflated contracts and corruption, and was very vociferous with the NPP government\u2019s pledge to reduce taxes as part of several measures to revive the economy.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_298414\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-298414\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-298414\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Ken-Ofori-Atta-2.jpeg\" alt=\"Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-298414\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>More so, the Constitution permits the presence of the Vice President in the chamber, and must be accorded all the privileges of the House, with the exception of voting in the chamber.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-298412 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Speaker.jpg\" alt=\"speaker\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ghana\u2019s economic challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ghana for close to six years now, has been wobbling in a number economic challenges which have seen a decline in its economic growth, a plunge in Government\u2019s revenue, rising unemployment, and increasing agitation among business operators over high taxes, a depreciating currency and weak economic fundamentals.<\/p>\n<p>In his first state of the nation address, President Nana Akuffo Addo painted a gloomy picture of the economy, reiterating among others earlier reports by the Finance Minister, that the country\u2019s current debt stock had ballooned to GH\u00a2122 billion, leaving Ghana\u2019s debt stock at 74% of GDP.<\/p>\n<p>He added that, three key targets set under the IMF program \u2013 growth, fiscal deficit were missed.<br \/>\n&#8211;<br \/>\nBy: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is in Parliament to observe the Finance Minister\u2019s presentation of the first budget statement of the Akufo-Addo government for the year 2017. It is often not the usual occurrence for the President or even the Vice President to be present during a budget reading. But it appears that Dr. Bawumia, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[389,3,4590,533],"class_list":["post-298397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-slider-1","category-top-stories","tag-bawumia","tag-ghana-news","tag-ghbudget","tag-parliament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=298397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=298397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=298397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=298397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}