have earlier blamed<\/strong><\/a><\/span> government’s excessive spending during the 2012 general elections for the current economic crisis.<\/p>\nHe argued\u00a0that, though such spending are inevitable during election season, that of 2012\u00a0\u201c\u2026was worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”JB2knsF3B2nDYG7hNyAjDR7WSF9kk27U”]But speaking at a press briefing on the IMF deal, the Finance Minister asked Ghanaians to disregard the claim since to him the evidence rather points to the payment of salary arrears and shortfalls in oil revenues as the cause of the 2012 balance of payment difficulties.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the issue of election year expenditures keep coming up all the time, but you will agree with me that single spine was not implemented in 2012. The implementation started in 2010.\u201d<\/p>\n
He noted that because the implementation did not go they way it was planned while arrears were paid in bulk, it increased the tax ratio to 70%.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I don\u2019t think we should attribute some of the overruns to election year expenses despite the fact that payments were made in an election year. We had also said that we would export 90,000 barrels per day average, we ended up with about 75,000 barrels per day, I don\u2019t think that can be attributed to election year decision,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n