‘Gov’t addicted to borrowing that it has returned from Peduase to bring more misery’ – Isaac Adongo

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolgatanga Central, Hon. Isaac Adongo has accused the ruling government of peddling lies over plans to cut down on expenditure.

He said the posture by the Akufo-Addo government gives the indication that it wants to continue borrowing.

Early in the afternoon, the Minister for Finance, Hon. Ken Ofori-Atta addressed the press to announce measures taken by the government to address the current economic challenges.

In addition to salary cuts for public officials, the Finance Minister disclosed that the government has resolved to cut the fuel coupon allocations to all political appointees by 50%.

While the salary cuts of officials are to save Ghana GHS3.5 billion according to Ken Ofori-Atta, Isaac Adongo says it is just falsehood.

Giving his preliminary reaction to the Finance Minister’s address, the Bolgatanga Central MP said the government is basically going to allow the economy to manage itself.

“The economy will be on autopilot from now because the measures that he has announced are just cosmetic,” Hon. Isaac Adongo told Citi News.

The MP alleged that the government is so addicted to borrowing to the extent that instead of the cuts it is propagating, it will rather continue borrowing more money to spend.

“You find the Minister for Finance, cabinet, go and waste taxpayers money for three-four days at Peduase and deliver nothing other than misery. Everybody has told you that your biggest problem is debt service. You are borrowing too much so your debt to GDP is way wire, you don’t even have the fiscal space in the budget because you are paying too much on debt service. That is what you need to cut.

“This government is addicted to the abuse of borrowing they now have a withdrawal problem. Even when they are coming to tell us something that we think will reduce the debt they are adding the debt including unapproved borrowing,” Isaac Adongo shared.

The Minority’s general view on the measures taken by the government to address the economic challenges is that it is cosmetic.

According to Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu, the Finance Minister must give specifics on how much the government is looking to cut from its budget.

“We do not find his proposed measures adequate enough. We need certainty and clarity. If you had an expenditure approval of GH¢145 billion, we expect that you tell us that I want to cut GH¢45 billion out of the GH¢145 [billion] and we know that this is your commitment.

“Twenty percent of this, 10% of that, we are still not certain how much expenditure cut he intends to undertake. More importantly, he’s announced a number of revenue measures,” Haruna Iddrisu told the media after the Minister’s briefing.