The government’s 2024 Annual Budget Statement and Economic Policy will be presented to Parliament on Wednesday, November 15, 2023, by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta.
There have been demands for the government to drastically cut back on spending before the presentation in order to save the ailing economy.
Kenneth Thompson, the CEO of Dalex Finance and Leasing Company Limited, warned this week that if the government keeps up its current trend of massive and ever-increasing expenditures, there will be an impending economic crisis in 2024.
Mr. Thompson said: “As a country, what we must focus on now is how to protect the poor. If you talk about cutting expenditure, there’s a long list of things we can cut, but we need to protect the poor, and we need to focus on health, education, infrastructure, food, and everything else because we are in a very bad place.”
In the meantime, the Finance Minister has said that the budget for 2024 will take long-term relief efforts for the victims of the Akosombo Dam leakage into account.
Speaking to media a few days after visiting the impacted areas, Mr. Ofori-Atta stated that although the government had already given the victims some relief supplies, they were determined to do more, and that commitment will be reflected in the budget for the following year.
“We have mobilized a few things that we would like to share but I think we are also in the budget season and therefore it will not just be numbers that we are working on but true feelings in the field and therefore the need to look at these social interventions in a real way. We will certainly give this an expression immediately and also in the budget,” he stated.
