Parliament to step up monitoring of gov’t expenditure, Bagbin says
The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin has stated that the legislature cannot afford to be unconcerned over government spending which he thinks demonstrates a strong oversight by lawmakers over the executive will hold lot of value for citizens.
According to him, it is important that the 275 lawmakers place improving the lives of those they serve at the top of their priorities as a country.
Speaking at the opening of a two-day 2022 post-budget workshop at Ho in the Volta region on Saturday, he said “We must increase our monitoring of government expenditure to ensure value for money for the people of this country. It calls for analysis of the fiscal impact of policies and laws arising from the budget. The pace at which government programmes and policies are implemented and the expenditure rollout needs monitoring. Parliament must ensure that the interventions in the budget are implemented as intended. Making sure that approved laws and policies benefit citizens in the way that they were intended to, is the overarching goal of our duty as legislators.”
He encouraged Members of Parliament to commit to fixing the economic turbulence. “If there was any time in the history of this country that Ghanaians are looking up to the Legislature – not the Executive – for solutions to the challenges confronting us as a people, it is now. That is why we must, for now, consign partisanship to the background and bring our nationalism to the fore in the decisions that we take and the issues we support.
“We have a fine opportunity to assert the independence and relevance of parliament in the governance of this country. Else, posterity will remember us as the crop of legislators who sacrificed Ghana on the altar of partisanship.”
Further, he expressed hope that the IMF engagement will bring relief to Ghanaians, despite disclosing that the House has not been updated on the negotiations so far.
“We have been courting the IMF for some time now, and it is the hope of every Ghanaian today that the overtures to the IMF will bring some relief to Ghanaians. The IMF negotiations should not continue to look like a suitor pursuing an unresponsive suitress. For now, that is how Ghanaians feel because we are in the dark so far as progress on the negotiations is concerned.
“Again, unfortunately, we have not been updated on the negotiations. Will the budget stem the deterioration in such macroeconomic indicators as inflation, interest rates and exchange rates among others? Most important of all, what are the initiatives in the budget that will bring respite to the majority of our constituents who are under severe social and economic pressures as a result of the mismanagement of the economy? These are some of the issues we ought to be looking out for as we go through this workshop.”
The Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu indicated that it was hope the workshop would be a useful platform that will deepen the understanding of issues to be discussed and assist MPs to evaluate, review and critique the national budget and make constructive recommendations.
He also commended the Ministry of Finance for engaging some committees of parliament and briefing them about the engagement with IMF and the path that the nation was threading.
“I hope and pray that from now on, it becomes part of the partnership that the parliament will be forming with the ministry of finance, executive in the crafting of budget so that at the very outset, we will be able to reconcile policies contained in the constitution and indeed other vital documents, so when we come to interrogating the budget, principles underpinning the budget we will be adding them and perhaps we will be talking to just allocations that if there are any differences, then it will relate to allocations, by then we would have agreed on the very broad contours of the budget formulations.” he noted.
Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu also pointed out that parliament has a duty to reflect the aspirations of the Ghanaian people, Ghanaian businesses and to take decisions that assures them “that we care about them.”
For Mr.Iddrisu, he urged parliament to help government “walk out of crisis” the country is facing, stressing that the finance minister was candid when he presented the 2023 budget last Thursday by conceding that assertion.
According to him, the 2023 budget is replete with the fact that government is broke and an economy that needs resuscitation, adding that some of the measures may provide the relief that the economy needs, whiles some may exacerbate them – “for instance when you say you placing a cap on employment into the public service, how does that add to the already existing alarming unemployment levels of our country.”
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta last Thursday presented the 2023 budget to Parliament, with a resolve from government to ensure fiscal disciplined aimed at restoring macro-economic stability. Among other spending cuts he announced includes; the freeze on the hiring of public and civil servants and extend a moratorium on government car purchases and non-essential travel in order to tackle a spiralling debt crisis.
Ghana’s economic growth is expected to slow to 3.7% in 2022 from 6.7% last year, and to 2.8% in 2023. The West African nation is in talks with the IMF for a US$3bn rescue package in a bid to rescue the economic hardship.
