Ranking Member on the Finance Committee, Isaac Adongo, has condemned the government’s attempts to blame the current economic woes on the COVID-19 pandemic.
He says that fiscal mismanagement was evident long before the health crisis began.
During the 2024 Mid-Year Budget Review presentation by the Finance Minister, Isaac Adongo voiced the Minority’s concerns.
He argued that the government should not use the pandemic as a scapegoat for its economic mismanagement.
“Even before COVID-19, the government of the day had already plunged this country into a serious fiscal quagmire. We were expected to record changes in our net international reserves. Mr. Speaker, we missed it in March and June and we’re looking at September 2024,” Adongo stated.
Highlighting that the economic troubles were evident well before the pandemic, Adongo pointed to a statement from the Bank of Ghana: “The government has been on our case that it is because of COVID-19 that we’re in this situation. However, the Bank of Ghana issued a statement indicating that at the time we exited the program in May 2019, the government of Ghana, five months later, was struggling with major concerns within the fiscal environment.”
Adongo firmly stated, “It is not true that our economic problems are solely due to COVID-19.”
In response, Deputy Finance Minister Abena Osei Asare assured that the government remains committed to fiscal discipline, noting a 2.9% savings achieved in the first half of 2024.
“Mr. Speaker, in an election year, we have been able to spend within our limits. We budgeted GHC1.48 billion to be spent from January to June 2024, but we have spent GHC1.1 billion. We have made some savings below GHC2.9 billion, below what was actually budgeted for. We’re bent on living within our means, ensuring that we don’t go over and above what has been proposed for us,” she explained.
Ghana has blamed external factors such as COVID-19, Russia-Ukraine war for the countries economic challenges. Internal factors include the exchange rate, Ghana’s heavy dependence on importation, inflation among others.