Minority demands new budget from Finance Minister

The Minority in Parliament has called for a new budget statement from the Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper, to address the current economic challenges in the country as projections made in the financial statement read on Tuesday, November 19, 2013 have fallen off target.

“Let me point out that the government itself has suffered because of the depreciation in the budget,” Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, Member of Parliament of Old Tafo Constituency, pointed out in a press confab held on Friday, February 14, 2014 on the recent fall of the local currency.

“Ghana’s economy is in real trouble,” he began his address.

The Minority’s Spokesperson on Finance noted that in Mr Terkper’s budget statement, government assumed that the exchange rate will be around $2.2.

“So if you are already above 2.2, then any expenditure that is forex-related would have to be adjusted upward,” he mentioned.

He said the recent measures announced by the Bank of Ghana to arrest the Cedi’s fall would not wash since the problem “is not merely a monetary conundrum”.

“As the Central Bank has asserted, it is required of the minister of Finance to cut back on huge deficits,” the former Minister of State in charge of Finance and Economic Planning said.

“The Bank of Ghana needs a lot of help from the Ministry of Finance,” he added.

The Minority Spokesperson blamed government for the current situation, remarking that: “even after all the credit rating agencies downgraded our credit rating as well as its outlook, the government failed to put its fiscal house in order”.

"I expect that [government] will come back [to Parliament]."