Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central, Isaac Adongo has chided the Akufo Addo led government for massaging the country’s financial data.
According to him, Ghana’s projected fiscal deficit should be 15.6% and not the 11.6% quoted by Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta when he presented the mid-year budget review to Parliament on Thursday.
In a statement Adongo said, “the financial engineering, clever accounting and massaging of financial data by this government through Ken Ofori Atta is mind-boggling”, the statement said, explaining: “If a government finances its deficit from the following sources in 2020: project loans of GHS4.9 billion, programme loans of GHS8.2 billion, Eurobond ($2 billion) of GHS11.6 billion, [all] totalling GHS24.7 billion from external sources and also finances the same deficit with domestic borrowing of GHS32 billion, the total foreign and domestic borrowing to finance the deficit should be GHS56.7 billion.”
“The deficit in 2020 should now be 15.6%”, he emphasized.
He added, “the Piccadilly armed robbers magically shaved off and suppressed expenditures of GHS12.6 billion to generate a deficit of GHS44 billion at 11.8% of GDP”.
Adongo further fumed, “if you add their projected revenue and grants of GHS53 billion to the true deficit of GHS56.6 billion, you get a total projected expenditure of GHS109 billion for 2020 but Ken Ofori Atta magically gets GHS97 billion”.
“But when you look at paragraph 444 under request for supplementary estimates, the Minister makes a huge disclosure when he says: ‘This will bring the revised 2020 total appropriations for 2020 to GHS109 billion’, thus, confirming the deficit figure of GHS56 billion and not GHS44 billion”, he stated.
He warned Ghanaians to be mindful of the government and not be fooled by the Bible verses they quote.
He stated, “when they come wearing white apparel and quoting verses of the Bible profusely, be careful and treat them for who they are: Piccadilly armed robbers”,
Source: GhanaFeed.com
