The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, will later today, Wednesday, October 28, 2020, present a budget to Parliament to cater for the first quarter of 2021.
The expected presentation, known as Expenditure in Advance of Appropriation, has become a usual characteristic of election years to prevent transitional challenges in the smooth running of government for the first three months in the year after an election.
Ahead of the presentation, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, served notice of intended heckling of the Minister if what he terms outstanding matters are not resolved.
“The outstanding matters that the Minister for Finance should do for members, if he does not, today we will heckle him. We will subject him to an empty room today as part of the heckling then he will know we do not want to hear him.”
The government in July this year presented a revised budget statement to Parliament for approval of an additional GHS11.8 billion to support the government’s expenditure for the rest of the year 2020.
This was after the government projections for the 2020 financial year were affected by the economic implications of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier this year, the Finance Minister announced that the government will require some GHS9.5 billion to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, a situation which may move the 2020 budget deficit to over seven percent.
He also stated that this will be 2.5 percent of Ghana’s revised GDP, and there will be a “fiscal gap of GHS11.4 billion.”
