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Gov’t Urged To Be Accountable For New Interventions Rolled Out To Revive Economy
Economist with Databank, Courage Martey has urged the government to be accountable in the quest to reap maximum impact off the interventions and cost-cutting measures rolled out to revive the economy.
The government has committed to further spending cuts amid the rising cost of living and growing sense of economic hardship.
These new measures will be in addition to the ongoing 20 percent expenditure cut as part of fiscal stabilization and debt sustainability measures.Members of the Council of State also voluntarily cut their monthly allowances by 20 percent till the end of 2022.
In addition, the Ministry of Finance has said it has strengthened its Expenditure Monitoring systems and processes to ensure effective implementation of these measures.
According to the government, these moves are aimed at ensuring the 7.4% deficit target set in the 2022 budget is met.
Courage Martey, reacting to this development believes the government must do due diligence in the implementation of these initiatives to send the right signals to the market.
He noted, “The government was painstakingly announcing these cuts because these are cuts that you see being introduced in other areas other than what you find in the budget that you can relate to. So in the end, the market will only want to rely on accountability to see whether these announcements are reflecting in the fiscal numbers.”
“So we’ll be looking forward to the government being accountable in the July mid-year budget review because you can see that there is a commitment to manage and close expenditure but as to whether we can really place a finger as to how this impacts the general expenditure and how we can be sure that it has been done leaves a lot of questions.”