The Minority New Patriotic Party (NPP) Caucus in Parliament says the cost of living in the country has become so high to the extent that people can no longer contribute much in terms of offertory and funeral donations.

“Mr. Speaker, the cost of living is so much high that if you go to churches, collection (offertory) is going down, even funeral donations are going down under this incompetent Mahama administration,” noted Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah.

The New Juaben South legislator made this observation on behalf of the Minority when seconding the motion for the adoption of the 2016 Budget and Financial Policy Statement that was laid on the floor of the House by the Finance Minister, Seth Terkper, on November 13, 2015.

The rising cost of living, he noted, was spurred by a mixture of incompetence and mismanagement of the economy by President John Dramani Mahama.

For instance, he said inflation which is one of the determinant factors in measuring the growth of a country has for the past 32 months remained at double-digit (17.4%), prompting fears that it might further go down in the coming months.

The industrial sector, he noted, recorded an outstanding growth of 9.1% but argued that the main areas that employs a lot of Ghanaians performed abysmally.

“Mining and quarry recorded -3.8%, manufacturing by -2%. This is where the bulk of the workforce participate in the industry. So, if manufacturing is growing by -2%, mining and quarry by -3.8%, no wonder unemployment is so high in this country.

Dr. Assibey-Yeboah described the budget that was presented by the Finance Minister as a rehash of old budgets with no bold initiatives to address the high cost of living, graduate unemployment and the persistent energy crisis in the country.