General News of Monday, 31 July 2017

Source: starrfmonline.com

Ghana’s economy on ‘life support’ – Minority

Isaac Adongo, MP for for Bolga Central Isaac Adongo, MP for for Bolga Central

Ghana’s economy is on a life support and must be treated with absolute care and attention, a member of the Minority in Parliament Isaac Adongo has said.

According to him, the Akufo-Addo government is deliberately playing propaganda with the state of the economy and may be hit the reality soon.

“Our economy is on life support; any attempt to use propaganda will expose us.

Where in the world, do we use 10-year-old nominal values to make present calculations? Gross international reserves mean nothing if you don’t relate it with the depreciation of the cedi.

“Today, we are being told that a father who fails to raise revenue to feed his family should be praised,” the Bolga Central MP noted while contributing to the debate on the reviewed 2017 budget presented by the Finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta Monday.

On his part, former deputy finance minister Cassiel Ato Forson said the government has failed to achieve its revenue targets.

“Government has failed to achieve its revenue targets. We are cutting down on the budget for goods and services by GhC600million. We are paying people but they don’t have the resources to work with. The budget is being revised from Asempa budget to Asembone budget,” he said.

Meanwhile, the government has announced that over 500,000 jobs will be created for the youth who are being stopped from the illegal mining business – galamsey.

“Over 500,000 job opportunities in oil palm plantations and regulated small-scale mining will be created under a five-year Multilateral Mining Integration Project (MMIP) project,” Mr. Ofori-Atta stated.