Full Professor of economics warns of low productivity during first quarter of 2025.

Full Professor of Financial Economics at the University of Ghana Business School, Finance Department, Prof. Lord Kwaku Mensah, says there may be low productivity at various government institutions in the first quarter of 2025.

According to him, his concern is due to the Finance Minister, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam’s failure to lay before Parliament the expenditure in advance of appropriation for the first quarter of 2025 which in turn has led to the failure of Parliament to approve the over GHc68 billion mini budget

Without a clear understanding of the financial resources available, the renowned economics believes state institutions may struggle to effectively carry out their duties which will eventually leads to a decreased in productivity and potentially impacting the delivery of essential services to the public.

He further explained that, without the approval of the mini budget for the expenditure in advance of appropriation for the first quarter of 2025, citizens may refuse to pay taxes without any legal consequences as government needs approval of budget in parliament before government can go ahead to mobilize revenue

“Parliament needs to understand that Parliament is just a subset of the country. And trust me, with this delay, there’s a serious economic consequence to it, which we may take it for granted, but it’s a deep one, already, we have an economy that is well dominated by government business.”

“If there’s a delay in government budget reading, trust me, the economic consequence is a huge one, we know what is on the budget, salary payment, talking about interest payment, talking about expenditure on goods and services and even in terms of revenue mobilization,

“I mean, any attempt that government to go about mobilizing revenue, would tend to be kind of illegality because there should be kind of approval of budget in parliament before government can go ahead to mobilize revenue to meet up the necessary expenditures that are supposed to be so people on the street can decide not to pay, their taxes and nothing can happen.” He said.

Prof. Lord Mensah cautioned Parliamentarians to put aside any partisan intentions if any and prioritize the overall interest of the nation

“For me, I think what you’re doing, they shouldn’t think it’s just happening in the chamber, but then or maybe trying to squeeze one way or the other, another government who is coming to power or trying to, you know, arrange some kind of economic bomb that the next administration is likely to come and meet but they should understand that this goes beyond  parliament.

“It’s the Ghanaian economy we are looking at, delay in payments in salaries, delay in payment, it can demoralize workforce and for that it can go down completely.” He said

Source: elvisanokyenews.com