Citizen’s Coalition Movement – a pressure group comprising the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), EGP, among others has held a round table discussion on the 2023 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government as presented to Parliament by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta.
The forum which was on the theme, “Interrogating Ghana’s 2023 budget and Economic Policy As Pathway to Economic Recovery’’ was held in Accra on Wednesday, December 15.
Addressing the participants, the Executive Director of CDD-Ghana, Prof. Kwesi Prempeh, who spoke on the governance aspect of the budget said Ghana’s repeated return of 17 times to the IMF tells how badly the state is being governed.
He said it is even worse the fact that the budget was not approved in parliament by concensus, rather a one sided party decision.
He lamented the fact that the current “Government seems to be more accountable to the IMF than its own citizens’’, a development he described as unfortunate, adding that “they have rather turned the country into a stadium of spectators rather than citizens”.
Taking a glance at the Education sector of the budget, the Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, highlighted the limited resource allocation to the sector when compared to previous years.
“This he noted is making education so difficult to run in the country and would be more difficult in the coming years,” he stated.
A panellist, Prof. Abena Oduro, noted that there was a very wide social protection gap and this comes under the administration of the Ministry of Gender, Women and Children Protection
“Gender protection does not only protect women but it seems we are leaving boys behind. More consideration is being given to women and boys are dying in Silent,’’ she said.
She advised the government to be more considerate towards this ministry so as to curb more domestic abuses that would could come due to the hardships ahead.
“Extractive sector revenue optimization royalties and 7% oil asset should be brought to the budget,” stated Benjamin Boakye, Director of the African Center for Energy Policy (ACEP). He said this shows that the government is significantly relegating the Energy sector to the background.
By Gertrude Edem Amuzu || ghananewsonline.com.gh