Majority, Minority clash over 2025 budget

The Majority in Parliament yesterday defended the government’s 2025 Budget Statement, describing it as a redemptive content to rescue the economy from the challenges inherited from the previous administration.

The Minority New Patriotic Party (NPP) on the other hand described the budget as “unrealistic and underfunded”, as the House began to debate the Budget Statement.

The heated exchanges on the floor of Parliament saw the NPP raising concerns about inconsistencies in revenue projections and the viability of key policies, while the NDC accused the opposition of hypocrisy, arguing that the current government was working to clean up the economic mess the NPP left behind.

Lacks credibility

Leading the charge for the Minority, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Karaga and former Minister of Finance, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam, criticised the budget as lacking credibility due to inconsistencies between the main document and its appendices.

He pointed out that several priority initiatives had been allocated scanty funds, making their implementation uncertain.

Dr Adam highlighted a discrepancy between the appropriations and the specific expenditure allocations in the budget. 

He said while GH¢6.9 billion had been allocated in the appropriations, the appendices showed a much higher figure of GH¢23 billion for goods and services.

This inconsistency, he suggested, indicated that goods and services had been significantly underfunded, revealing a gap between the overall budget presentation and the actual allocations.

Similar inconsistencies, he said, were evident in the education sector, where allocations for free tuition, secondary school support, and textbooks summed up to GH¢1.3 billion, yet only GH¢800 million had been provided in the appendices.

He questioned: “How is the government going to implement these education finance initiatives when the central bank is heavily underfunded with initiatives?”

On economic transformation, he argued that key initiatives such as the “Big Push” were not adequately resourced.

He said the government had projected to spend GH¢40 billion on the initiative over a four-year period, translating to $2.5 billion annually, although only GH¢13 billion had been allocated for 2025, leaving a shortfall of GH¢27 billion.

Unaudited figures

Dr Adam further claimed that the fiscal balances presented in the budget were misleading, as they were based on unaudited figures.

He accused the Finance Minister of manipulating the country’s deficit numbers to meet International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditions.

He asked: “The Minister himself said in paragraph 135 of the budget that he is yet to audit these figures. How then do you use unaudited figures to determine fiscal balances for the economy?”

Dr Adam warned that such practices had already led to financial losses, citing Bloomberg reports that the country’s sovereign bonds had declined due to the government’s failure to meet its primary fiscal target.

Fixing the economy

Responding for the Majority, the MP for Bolgatanga Central, Isaac Adongo, dismissed the NPP’s criticisms as baseless and hypocritical.

He argued that the opposition was struggling to accept that the current government had presented a budget without resorting to borrowing from the international capital market.

“They are wondering how we put together such a budget without going to borrow $3 billion from the international capital market. For them, that type of budget can only be financed with borrowing,” he stated.

Heavy lifting

Mr Adongo accused the previous administration of mismanaging the economy to the point of bankruptcy, forcing the current government to undertake “heavy lifting” to restore stability. 

He challenged the NPP’s demand for audited financial data in the budget, arguing that budgets had never been presented with audited financial statements.

“When did we ever come here to present a budget with audited financial statements? You have been doing that for eight years, and today you are asking that we should have come with audited financial statements before declaring the deficit we inherited,” he said.

He defended the government’s revenue measures, saying they were designed to ease the tax burden on ordinary Ghanaians.

He announced that the controversial Electronic Transfers Levy, commonly called E-Levy, would be abolished, describing it as a tax that unfairly targeted the poor.

“We are abolishing E-Levy. Tomorrow, he (the Finance Minister) will be with me to move the processes towards abolishing that tax so that His Excellency can sign it and repeal it,” he declared.

People budget

Mr Adongo also criticised the NPP for its handling of key sectors such as agriculture and infrastructure, stating that the previous administration prioritised slogan-driven policies over real development.

“When this country had a minister for railway development, a minister for aviation, a minister for ports, and a minister for transport, today we have one man handling all of them, and he is doing the work efficiently,” he said.

He insisted that the 2025 budget was a pro-poor budget aimed at improving the lives of ordinary Ghanaians.

“This is a budget that makes sure that even if you don’t have the money, the state will help you pay your school fees.

This is not the kind of budget where the government didn’t have money but was busy breeding ghosts and failing to pay national service personnel,” he remarked.