Minority Leader, Alban Bagbin says information available to him "both documentary and a statement from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government point to the fact that the future looks very bleak and we are told by the Finance Minister that we should brave ourselves for harder times. I also know from the memos written by our development partners that they are expecting government to take very stringent measures. They say if the government doesn?t do that, the economy is likely to collapse because so far, the economy has shown the lack of ability to control expenditure".
In an interview with the Daily Dispatch newspaper on his expectations for this year, Mr Bagbin said ''usually even though they refer to the wage bill, the wage bill they talk of is not the wage bill of everybody. It means that government is spending more somewhere that people don?t even know''.
''I know that when the government increased the salaries of their private secretaries by 40%, their messengers by 30% and their staff also by the same figures ? the President, the vice, Ministers and deputies, it became clear that there was no expenditure control. Then also if we look at the mid-year review government presents, it always spends far above the budget''.
Mr Bagbin said it will be very difficult for government to increase prices of petroleum products considering the low salaries of workers. ''But that is what is being requested of them and they have no choice as at now, considering the way they have locked themselves into HIPC and its conditionalities. It is not a flexible economic policy and therefore they will be compelled to increase these prices and bring untold hardships to the people of Ghana''.
Mr Bagbin says there are harder times ahead of Ghanaians. ''The government has been cautioned that if they don?t carry out these measures, inflation is likely to get to about 40% by the end of this year. The worse thing is that if government does not implement these measures, the IMF, World Bank and other development partners would not release the support they have pledged to the country. So I can see harder times for us''.
