The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has expressed his personal commitment to fiscal discipline, assuring he will avoid budget overruns in 2024, ahead of the elections in December.
“We have moved inflation from over 54.1% in December 2022 to about 23.2% in December 2023 and you think that did not come with exercising some fiscal prudence? The Ministry of Finance is not here to be loved, but to make sure that the community crosses the Jordan”, he told George Wiafe on PM Express, Business Edition on January 18, 2023.
He added that the Bank of Ghana is doing its part to ensure that monetary policy tools are properly used to continue to bring inflation down.
“We want to ensure that the right things are done going forward as a country. If the expenditure does not fall in line with the budget, I will not sign the cheque”, he said.
He stated that government will strictly abide by its fiscal policies to attain its targets in the 2024 budget.
“I think the country is aware of the cost of inflation and cedi depreciation and we are going to do everything on our part to ensure that things don’t go bad”.
Containing inflation rate for 2024
Mr. Ofori-Atta said all government officials have been reminded to maintain fiscal prudence.
He disclosed that government has taken some tough measures in containing spending, reflecting in the downward trend of inflation.
He is of the view that the right policies can be pursued to help government achieve its 2024 end of year inflation target of 15.%.
“If we should look at 2022 and 2023, we cannot forget about what government has done when it comes to expenditure and we intend to continue. It is an election year, we will not let our eyes off the ball when it comes to fiscal discipline”, he reiterated.
Economic concerns and IMF programme
Mr. Ofori-Atta expressed optimism that Ghana’s programme with the IMF will yield good results.
On the issues taxes, he noted that it is a very difficult decision taken by government to introduce some new measures to increase revenue.
“We are still not doing well when it comes to Ghana’s tax-to-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio and something has to be done about it”.
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