Implement budget to reflect good living conditions!

 As the country’s 1992 Constitution demands, yesterday, the Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, presented the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government for the 2025 Financial Year.

Before he delved into the budget itself, the Minister made a related speech and this is what is of interest to The Ghanaian Times.

We have decided to pick on one or two issues raised in the speech prefacing the budget presentation because we think it has become the culture of political parties in the country, especially those in opposition, to usually make nonsense of the budget before any serious analysis of it could be done.

Have you heard the Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Mar­kin, saying, for instance, that there is no inspiration from the budget and that it is a hopeless financial plan?

Those who think like Afen­yo-Markin would try to find the basis for their stance, whereas the government and those on its side would do well to prove them wrong.

Whichever way the argument goes, we are concerned with the interest or the greater good of Ghanaians and as such think that politicians must give the chance to those who would do propaganda-free analysis to point out the merits and flaws in the financial plan.

That way, the government can genuinely rethink the flaws as it implements the budget.

Our line of picking issues from the speech is therefore to call attention to the need for what can be used later to judge the government as to whether it has been financially respon­sible or not and follow that judgement up with whatever is appropriate to be said.

Let’s not forget that apart from the Financial Policy of Government, the Minister sub­mitted to Parliament statutory reports like those on the Petro­leum Funds and Energy Sector Levies as they fared in 2024.

These should illicit some questions from certain individ­uals and organisations, all in the hope of ensuring the best in the running of those entities being reported on.

Dr Forson also mentioned his resolve and, for that matter, that of the government, to seek the review of certain Acts, including Petroleum Revenue Management Act, 2011 (Act 815); Ghana Infrastructure In­vestment Fund Act, 2014, (Act 877); Minerals Income Invest­ment Fund Act, 2018 (Act 978); Energy Sector Levies Act, 2015, (Act 899); Public Procurement Authority Act, 2003 (Act 663) as amended with Act 914; Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2018 (Act 982) to incorporate it into a comprehensive Public Financial Management Act; and the Rev­enue Administration Act, 2016 (Act 915).

The Finance Minister says the review is to support the policies of the government aimed at stabilising the economy and promoting inclusive growth.

We know such review will happen in Parliament but we pray that the experts in those areas who are not legislators would be given the opportunity to provide inputs.

The Ghanaian Times hopes at the end of the day, the imple­mentation of the budget would reflect the government’s agenda of “Resetting the Economy for the Ghana we want”, where jobs, accountability and prosperity for all are the order of the day because the true as­pirations, felt needs and genuine desires of the people have been met and hope restored.