"Campaign Budget" was unimpressive - Dan Lartey

The leader of the Great Consolidate Popular Party, Dan Lartey has described the 2004 budget statement as an unimpressive one because it does not address the needs of the ordnary person.

He also described the various tax relieves for the private sector as worthless, considering the continuous deterioration of the sector. And in tune with the NDC minority in parliament, he called the budget a campaign tool for the ruling New Patriotic Party.

"The tax relieves raises suspicion. I do not see what they mean. Where are the businesses which are supposed to get the relieves. All businesses in the country have already collapsed. It seems to me that the government is only looking for a way of getting money for its campaign."

Mr Lartey said he expected the budget to specifically mention initiatives that will take people off the streets and offer them jobs.

"I was expecting to hear how government has created jobs to rid the major streets of Accra of hawkers who include youngsters who have passed their secondary school exams. I was expecting to hear how our university graduates who are helpless and without jobs would be helped."

The GCPP leaders campaigned the 2000 general elections with a promise to domesticate everything by ensuring that Ghanaians produce what they eat and export what they cannot eat.

He has become one of the NPP's fiercest critics of late and described the President's state of the nation address as "one that said nothing."