The Minority Spokesperson on Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson, who made the call, had stated that government had reviewed some key economic targets without recourse to the House.

[contextly_sidebar id=”M5Z8p3dKwen9XewuIXaV46Tl3cL4GI7Z”]According to him, “The Minister responsible for Finance cannot revise the expenditures and revenue without parliamentary resolution.”

Mr. Kwarteng however dismissed these suggestions, saying the Minority’s argument is flawed since government cannot premise its budget on the previous one passed by Parliament, while ignoring the realities on the ground.

“The point that we should have rather premised the 2018 budget on the 2017 budget passed by Parliament, and we should have ignored the realities and we should have not built future plans on the basis of today’s actuals is a very strange proposition.

“You do your budget on the basis of actuals because going forward, you want to plan on the basis of reality so for anyone to suggest that because you did midyear review and Parliament did not approve of it, then you are unable to do 2018 budget statement because you would have premised it on the mid year review projections is flawed,” Mr. Kwarteng argued.

About the 2018 budget

The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, on Wednesday, November 15, 2017, presented the Akufo-Addo government’s 2018 Budget Statement and Economic Policy to Parliament.

The budget highlighted results from the government’s policy programmes over the past few months, and announced the government’s planned developmental programs for the next fiscal year.

Among the major programs to be rolled out by the government in 2018, are tax relief for private universities, tax holiday for young entrepreneurs, proposed 13% reduction in electricity tariff for residential consumers and 21 for industries, the establishment of a nation-building corps to offer jobs to graduates, and operationalization of the special prosecutors’ office.

The budget, dubbed the ‘Adwuma Budget’ [Job’s Budget], focuses mainly on revenue mobilization through strict tax collection modules and job creation.

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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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The post Minority’s call for budget withdrawal flawed – Kwaku Kwarteng appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to government, it was compelled to approve the extension because the IMF threatened to immediately abrogate the whole deal if they declined the proposal.

A Deputy Minister of Finance, Kwaku Kwarteng, who made the revelation on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday, said the IMF told them that the programme “had under-performed” and Ghana would miss its objectives for going for the facility hence the only way to be back on track is an extension.

[contextly_sidebar id=”N27KTYNJCuSvSMxnFmqkL36DgKCPk3JD”]…The IMF has been around for two years and they the IMF are now telling us that the programme has under performed, and so we should now extend it. We didn’t think we needed that. So when we expressed that view to them… what we didn’t anticipate was the response we subsequently got from the IMF. It was that if we do not extend, then there is no way we were going to achieve the objectives of the programme so they will end the programme today,” he said.

The NPP government had in the past chastised the Mahama government for putting Ghana under the IMF programme and promised not to extend it after the programme elapsed in 2018. But per the new agreement, the programme will now end in April 2019.

IMF approved an additional 94 million dollar disbursement for the extension which implied that freeze on government sector employment will linger on.

Some Ghanaians subsequently lashed out at the Akufo-Addo government for the one year extension window.

But defending the issue on the Citi Breakfast Show, Mr. Kwarteng said government approved the extension because “we didn’t want to hurt Ghana’s credible image”

“…I for instance thought that, from what we had told them, we did not want to come out of the programme as though there is a new government and government had abandoned the programme, it will send a wrong signal to the market and it will hurt our image as a credible country so we said we were not going to do that.”

He said the IMF further threatened not to continue with the fourth quarter review of the programme with Ghana if the government rejects the request for an extension.

“That was in plain language that the IMF was telling us that if you do not extend beyond first quarter of 2018, then we think that we are not even going for the review,” the Deputy Finance Minister added.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post We were ‘forced’ to extend IMF programme – Gov’t appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

For one, the Minister argued on Eyewitness News that government’s plans were contained in the budget statement which was in the public domain.

[contextly_sidebar id=”ovZURJ0Tz2wlYZWpqvG3Wofkdw56UhXD”]”The people including representatives of the workers have looked at this budget statement. Nobody should pretend that this was some strange policy that was sprung on Ghanaians,” Mr. Kwarteng asserted.

“There has been consultation with many stakeholders on this subject. During the budget preparation, we spoke with many experts,” he added.

The government also engaged with “some of the senior level officers of VRA” and some of these engagements “have been running for years,” Mr. Kwarteng said.

“You cannot always go down and organize workers’ forums and say that this is what government wants to do; do you agree?… This new requirement that anytime you are making a decision on any entity, you need to go and organise public forum with the workers there is strange to me.”

Surprised staff

The Senior Staff Association of VRA, had, noted to Citi News that the advert came as a surprise to all the staff of the VRA.

“We were not consulted. We were not engaged in any way so we have no input in what the government is trying to do,” Cephas Duse, the Chairman of the Senior Staff Association of VRA stated.

Mr. Kwarteng, however, extended an olive branch, saying the government was ready to explain its position to the VRA staff.

“We are happy to engage the workers and to explain the rationale for these decisions and that it is for the good energy sector that we are taking these steps. That kind of engagement, we are willing to do.”

“But the suggestion that we should have sought the approval of workers before proceeding, and that if anybody disagrees with government policy then somehow there is a problem with the policy, is something I do not accept.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Thermal plants sale: Gov’t didn’t ‘swerve’ VRA staff – Kwaku Kwarteng appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Mr. Kwarteng noted that “over the years, we allowed the VRA to stray into the provision of energy through thermal plants.”

[contextly_sidebar id=”sPJyQqPDdLt63swHCDhVlc6zMs7HWb79″]”The long and short of it is that we want the VRA to focus on what it is best at doing; management of the hydro plants. That is what traditionally they have been good at,” he explained on Eyewitness News.

This policy direction was announced by the Finance Minister in the 2017 budget in Parliament and the advertised the sale of at least a majority stake in specified thermal plants owned by the VRA formed part of the “implementation of a policy that has been announced in a budget statement and that has been approved by Parliament,” Mr. Kwarteng said.

The government had decided that the VRA was not doing a good enough job with the management of the thermal plants, hence the recent move that has upset some workers of the VRA.

“The management of these thermal assets by VRA has not been as we would have wanted it and most of these plants are indebted and if you look at the energy sector indebtedness, nobody can say, as a country, we have managed these thermal assets as well as we should have. Therefore, this policy intervention is to address this.”

With the $2.4 million bond to tackle the energy sector, limiting the constraints brought on by the management of the thermal pants would also ensure Ghana doesn’t have to borrow again to offset debts, the Minister pointed out.

“This decision is part of a comprehensive arrangement to deal with the energy sector indebtedness and energy sector mismanagement to ensure that dumsor and the problems associated with energy delivery are consigned to history.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post VRA needs to prioritize hydropower – Kwaku Kwarteng appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr. Kwarteng said the Minority was simply looking to find something wrong with the Finance Minister’s presentation for the sake of it to project a sense of opposition vigilance.

“It isn’t the case that anytime government presents something, you must find something wrong. If there is nothing wrong, you may keep quiet,” the Minister said to the Minority.

The Minority at a press conference on Wednesday contended that the Akufo-Addo administration breached Financial Administration Regulation 193 by doctoring figures during its mid-year review.

Addressing the press conference, the Ranking Member of Parliament’s Finance Committee, Cassiel Ato Forson, said the Minister of Finance reversed interest payments to the tune of GHc 758.5 million and reviewed the GDP without a formal Ghana Statistical Service Statement at the end of the 2016 financial year.

Responding to this, Mr. Kwarteng explained that what they were trying to do was to take government’s revised projection to Parliament and because they were all downward projections, they didn’t see the need to seek supplementary appropriation.

“At the time we sent the budget to Parliament, we did indicate that we would pay an amount for interest payments. Since then, we have done a lot of debt re-profiling. We have borrowed long term at lower rates to retire old debts that carried higher rates so that our overall interest burden would be lessened.”

“We have achieved that and when we went to Parliament to review the figures, we thought it wise to indicate that we have been able to reduce our interest burden to this figure. Why should anybody want to criticize that?”

Illegitimate points

In Mr. Kwarteng’s view, the rumblings from the Minority were simply unhelpful and brewing unhealthy tension.

“All the points that Honorable Ato Forson made, in my respectful opinion, are illegitimate points. It would appear to me that there was the need to say something and trying hard to find something to say isn’t helpful in these circumstances. These general suggestions of some wrongdoing and calling on Parliament to investigate is politics that is unhelpful.”

“My respectful suggestion to them is that they must raise issues that would be worth debates that government can learn something from; not these respectfully illegitimate issues that do nothing but create unhealthy engagements between the Minority and Majority.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Minority’s critique of mid-year budget ‘illegitimate’ – Kwaku Kwarteng appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Kwaku Kwarteng had revealed in Parliament that government had allocated over 3 million cedis from its coffers, with an additional allocation of over 2 million cedis from the District Assembly Common Fund to the committee for the celebrations despite the President having said previously the celebrations would be privately funded.

[contextly_sidebar id=”MJDU8Fh1mXvTXaoAaz6TEw5ehYGK4E0s”]However, this was denied by the Chairman of the ‘Ghana 60 years on‘ Committee, Ken Amankwah, who said that the 5.26 million was spent on the Independence Day events and not Ghana@60 events.

According to Mr Casely-Hayford, the question from the North Tongu Member of Parliament, Okudzeto Ablakwa on why state money was used to finance the celebration was valid and that the seemingly ill-prepared Kwaku Kwarteng had not delivered convincing responses.

Speaking on Citi FM‘s news analysis programme The Big Issue, Casely Hayford said:  “I think Okudzeto Ablakwa was right in asking the question he did. This is what you said and yet we’re hearing something different. Unfortunately on the day the deputy Minister, Kwaku Kwarteng wasn’t ready and adequately prepared for the question and therefore he came across as rather porous.”

“I think in so many ways he goofed because he took his eye off the ball and didn’t have enough facts to be able to answer back when he was asked. But these are the learning grounds and Ministers have to be a little sharper in order for us to get where we want to go.”

He believes that the Ministers need to be better prepared given the increased vigilance of the populace with the growing influence of new media and greater scrutiny from the opposition.

“I think they sometimes forget that we are in the age of citizen journalism and those of us outside tend to have a lot more information and a lot more insight. We are able to exchange views and ideas with fellow citizens much easier and much quicker so we get on top of issues very quickly,” he added.

“Also the ‘babies with sharp teeth’ have had some time to sharpen their teeth even better so they are coming back at the government with more specific questions than necessary. It’s a hard task when you are asked such detailed questions and you haven’t got a piece of paper in front of you to be able to address all of them. ”

Health Minister ‘unprepared’

This isn’t the first time a government appointee under the current administration has been accused of being unprepared when they appeared before Parliament.

The Member of Parliament for Wa West, Joseph Yieleh Chireh suggested earlier this month that the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu was unprepared when he appeared before Parliament on Thursday to respond to questions on the debt at the National Health Insurance Scheme.

According to Mr. Yieleh-Chireh, the Minister did not make an attempt acquire the data required to answer the question despite the fact that the said request had been made two weeks prior to the encounter.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, the former Health Minister stated that the current Minister’s unpreparedness led to a number of evasive answers when he addressed the House.

“My question to the Minister was for him to tell Ghanaians about what the government has done about outstanding payments to service providers. If he was prepared to answer the questions which it appeared he wasn’t he’d have told us the amount outstanding, the amount paid so far and what’s left. He didn’t any of this at all. The purpose was to get information,” he said.

“I don’t expect a Minister to have all this information in his head but this question was posed about two weeks ago. He could have asked the agencies responsible, to provide up-to-the-minute data on how much NHIS had paid to service providers.”

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By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Kwaku Kwarteng goofed on GHC5.2m Ghana@60 funds – Casely-Hayford appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

He said government has been compelled to borrow more in order to defray the debt the Mahama government left behind.

Dr. Mahammudu Bawumia at Monday’s press interaction justified government’s quest to borrow more money from the international and domestic markets.

[contextly_sidebar id=”xVs5mkfYnmljpLwDeLjONjSVC6gQmMl8″]The Vice President who in time past lambasted the Mahama government for its voracious appetite for loans which he said bloated the country’s debt stock when asked why six months into office they [NPP] have had to borrow over GH40 billion, Dr. Bawumia said under the NPP government, the debt to GDP ratio is instead stabilizing.

“…If you are borrowing rampantly in the domestic market, you will see that interest rate declines. So the simple answer is that, the debt stock in terms of its impact burden on the economy is not actually increasing. The debt to GDP ratio is actually stabilizing and we are hoping to bring it down by the end of the year even if marginally,” he added.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday,  Kwaku Kwarteng said securing the loans was necessary to retire mature debts the NPP government inherited from the previous administration.

Mr. Kwarteng further explained that government’s decision to borrow more prevented it from defaulting on its debt payments.

“We are having to measure the rate at which we are trying to reduce the borrowing. We are measure that with the need to expend on certain critical expenditures. When we assumed office, there were people who have been engaged to do things for the state, the contracts have been signed. In the case of vehicles, some have been telling us that have already procured the vehicle and we stand the risk of incurring judgment debts and other obligations if we abrogated these contracts.”

“We’ve met cases where in the last quarter of the year, so many people were engaged, we cannot dismiss them, we need to look at where the law allows us to do that. So we met those commitments. There were also people from who we had taken short term instruments – Treasury bill; there are some which are three months, six months, one year,” he said.

Kwaku Kwarteng further said government’s hands a tied because of debts and that they are working assiduously to put the economy back in track.

“You come into office you have a policy to reduce borrowing but after three months the people are coming to you that it is due and you have to redeem. What you do is that yes, I will keep my broad objective of succession of borrowing in place, but you may need to do some critical borrowings to deal with this immediate burden. That is what has, if you ask me; reduce the rate at which we wanted to reign in borrowing. But we will get there. When you inherit an economy in a shape that we did, you are not in a position to do things just as quickly as you would have love to do. But we are confident giving what we are seeing that ultimately, we will get there,” he added.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post Kwaku Kwarteng defends NPP’s borrowing spree appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to the Minority, the law had been passed as far back in April, hence differing the implementation to another date is considered as contempt of Parliament.

The Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, while filing the motion on Thursday, argued that the GRA and the Ministry of Finance cannot on their own suspend the implementation of a tax law duly passed by the Parliament and approved by the President.

[contextly_sidebar id=”JTcUPj4VzMVUiiVhsot7b4k2zZILUp53″]“Mr. Speaker, I beg to move that this honourable House call on the Minister responsible for Finance to implement the value added tax amendment act 2017, Act 948 and suspend the advert in the media suspending the implementation of Act 948.”

Government in the 2017 Budget Statement announced some tax reliefs, including abolishing of VAT on Financial services.

To give legal effect to the policy on VAT on Financial services however, Parliament in March 2017, passed the Value Added Tax (Amendment), Act 2017, Act 948, and to include the supply of the financial services as exempt supply.

In arguing his motion, Mr. Iddrisu cited a newspaper in which he said the GRA had published a notice of suspension of implementation of the tax signed by the Commissioner General of the authority.

“From my emphasis…it says that, the implementation of the 3 percent vat flat rate scheme which should have started on 1^st June 2017, be postponed to 1^st July 2017. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to refer you to article 106 of the Constitution; and it provides that the power of Parliament to make laws shall be exercised by bills, passed by Parliament and assented to by the President. Mr. Speaker, we were in this House in April when the Minister of Finance introduced what was called the value added tax amendment bill 2017. Subsequently, this august House subjected the bill through the proper processes of legislative scrutiny and passed it unto law. Mr. Speaker, I’m holding here a copy of Act 948 assented to by the President as reported in the Gazette of 5^th April 2017. The date of Gazette notification is 7^th April 2017…And now we are in the month of June and its being differed,” he said.

The Minority Leader also noted that, the publication would create confusion in the minds of Ghanaians and businesses because it has conflicting figures on which percentage of tax was supposed to be cut off.

“This publication is only going to create confusion in the minds of the Ghanaian public and to businesses, wholesalers and retailers, in one breadth, 17.5 percent, and in another breadth 3 percent flat rate. Mr. Speaker, this is even contemptible of this House; that an institution of GRA and Ministry of Finance will set aside an act of Parliament and just make an announcement that I’m suspending this tax payment,” he explained.

“Mr. Speaker, my motion is to call on the Minister to arrest this contemptible action of the GRA and stop the confusion in the minds of Ghanaians wholesalers and retailers as to which tax rate to pay. I know government is struggling for fiscal space; but even in looking for that space, there must be discipline and the GRA must give reasons why they must not be brought here to explain they are not in contempt of Parliament,” he added.

But the Majority opposed the motion.

A Deputy Finance Minister, Kwaku Kwarteng, argued that the decision to postpone the implementation of the law is not necessarily a breach of law but borne out of a genuine challenge with the implementation of the tax.

“The GRA would need to communicate the new ways of implementing the tax to their offices on the ground who actually go to the tax payers to collect the tax. Mr. Speaker, we were in a hurry, we told the Ghana Revenue Authority to immediately implement this law. In response, the GRA did issue that administrative directive also known as tax notes. When the tax officers went to taxpayers to collect the taxes, the taxpayers raised concerns about conflict in the way the tax officers were administering the new tax measure and the tax measure itself. That is, the taxpayers complained that the GRA officers were not implementing the measure as they ought to in the law so they petitioned the Ministry of Finance.”

“We have had engagements with the taxpayers involved as well as the GRA. And it is worthy of note that indeed the taxpayers concerns needed more attention. To do that, we advised the GRA to withdraw the tax notes so that we can resolve the misunderstanding and then they can proceed with the implementation as has started already. So the suggestion that somehow we are suspending a law passed by this house is incorrect,” he clarified.

On the newspaper advert, Mr. Kwarteng said it was wrongly worded.

“I have seen the advert that my colleague was referring to, I’ve looked at it and I think it was an error. I am clear in my mind that, that advert is an error. Nobody, not even the Ministry of Finance has the power to suspend a law that has been passed by this House. And therefore the motion that suggest that Ministry of Finance and the GRA has suspended the implementation must not carry because the preparation and issue, and in fact the communication of this practice notes are being implemented and we are doing so. So to bring a motion to this House that suggests that somehow we have halted the implementation…is wrong,” the Deputy Finance Minister argued.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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The post Minority angry over ‘suspension’ of VAT collection appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

He explained that the programme has emboldened the country to take hold of its economic capabilities to be elf-reliant instead of relying on IMF for a bailout.

[contextly_sidebar id=”jmtckFYQH7v93iKv8TxlDtoHlG2HBvao”]“…I think as a country we can look on the IMF programme as something to learn from, that the presence of the IMF will not necessarily give us the economic development that we want. And so the programme, if not for anything at all, has been useful in teaching us the lesson that as a country we have to do more ourselves and not assume that the presence of development partners in our country would lead to the development that we want.”

Mr. Kwarteng,who is also the Member of Parliament for the Obuasi West Constituency, said this when he appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament on Tuesday to be vetted.

Ghana under the leadership of John Dramani Mahama entered a three year Extended Credit Facility programme with the IMF because of huge debts and an ailing economy, and the need for fiscal discipline and policy credibility.

The programme, which is currently in its final stages, saw Ghana receive about US$918 million within the period.

According to Mr. Kwarteng, most of the IMF parameters had deteriorated over the period.

“As a country, we went into the programme because our debts had become unsustainable and therefore the cost of credit to our country was becoming too much and as the then President said, we were going there for policy credibility so that investors will trust our policies and if they were lending to us, they will do that at more affordable rates. If the parameters are anything to go by, then from the time we engaged in the programme till now, then many of the indicators have deteriorated,” he added.

NDC govt missed all IMF targets in 2016- Nana Addo

President Nana Akufo-Addo during his first state of the nation address to Parliament in February this year, revealed that Ghana missed nearly all targets set for the country under  the International Monetary Fund(IMF) Extended Credit Facility program of US$918 million.

According to him, government missed the targets due to financial and fiscal indiscipline in the management of public funds. President Akufo-Addo blamed the erstwhile John Mahama administration for  expending beyond the budget, after it experienced a similar budget overrun in the 2012 election year.

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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post IMF programme taught us self-reliance – Kwaku Kwarteng appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to him, the Vice President’s comment only meant that, the expenditure was not properly accounted for within government’s financial management framework.

Mr. Kwarteng’s comment comes on the back of some media reports which said the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, had claimed that data on the GHc7 billion expenditure had gone missing.

[contextly_sidebar id=”2wJuYKAyKujtt6nhdz47rL8FTEFs4NUh”]“In preparing for this year’s budget for example, we have been very surprised by the fiscal data, the data on our expenditure and our revenue. As we interrogated the data, we realized to our shock that, expenditure amounting to 7 billion cedis was made by the previous government, but never disclosed. These come from 2014, 2015 and 2016, so where have they been hiding all these years? How are you supposed to manage an economy with faulty data? And so we have to emphasize that, getting the data right is really very key because it throws the entire budget into disarray because you are going into 2017 and suddenly you are told by the way that there is 7 billion you have to pay next year that you did not anticipate. This is the reality,” the Vice President added.

Meanwhile, answering questions from the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu when he [Kwaku Kwarteng] appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament on Tuesday, the Deputy Finance Minister nominee defended the Vice President’s comments on the GHc7 billion claim.

“They have never been missing. I was surprised when I heard; especially the spokespersons of the previous government make the point about government claiming some monies were missing. What I heard from the Vice President and Ministry of Finance was that these monies happened outside the public financial management framework, that is to say, you have GIFMIS and platforms that proper expenditures could go through where people sit in their districts and sometimes they commit central government. These happened outside GIFMIS and our public finance management frameworks, so when they come to you say they are unreported, you didn’t know about them, you didn’t know they were in the economy. They were not missing; they were just outstanding obligations that government had to satisfy,” he clarified.

He also noted that, the amount could even be more because government is still in the process of auditing the data bothering on the claims.

“It is GHc7 billion, it is still being audited but for now, it is GHc7 billion. What the budget presented is a different category of what we called arrears. There are many arrears in the economy, in fact, the figure could even be more than GHc7 billion because as the minister indicated, the claims are still being validated, the figure could even be more than the GHc7 billion the Vice President mentioned,” Mr. Kwarteng added.

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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post Kwaku Kwarteng backs Bawumia on GHc7bn unaccounted expenditure appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.