President slashes executive freebies

Government would in the next few weeks institute measures to cut down on the rising expenditure of its executive arm, which includes the presidency, cabinet ministers, and all those who have the sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state.

President John Dramani Mahama, who disclosed this during the State of the Nation’s Address, in Parliament last week said rationalization of state vehicles and fuel shall be some of the measures, adding that, the Chief of Staff had been given appropriate directions on the matter.

“We will discuss with auto companies a scheme to enable our senior public servant to buy their own vehicles on high purchase and curtail the reliance on the use of state vehicles, “the President hinted.

He added: “We are taking strict measures to curtail MDAs spending beyond their budgetary allocations and new mechanisms of strict monitoring will be announced by the Minister of Finance in the 2013 budget.”

The biggest fiscal challenge facing Ghana currently has to do with misalignment of the expenditure categories in the budget namely, emoluments (i.e., wages, salaries and allowances), goods and services (including debt service), and investment or capital expenditure.

Personnel emoluments portion of the Budget, President Mahama noted, had tripled in the last three years, from GH¢2.5 billion to GH¢7.5 billion. This, according to him, has been mainly due to the Single Spine Salary Scheme (SSSS).

“We now spend a staggering 60.9 percent of our entire national revenue to pay public sector salaries. This is almost double the globally accepted prudent level of between 30 to 35 percent,” the President lamented.

President Mahama said the issue was even more significant because, “as we struggle to tackle the wage bill, thousands of public workers continue to make demands for wage increases and threaten work stoppage if we do not meet their demands.”

“Mr Speaker, the meat is now down to the bones and it is now time for serious rethinking about the level of wages in relation to our national competitiveness and the related productivity issues. It is said to whom much is given, much is expected,” he stated.