Gov’t lauds Parliament for approving 2021 budget

The government has lauded Parliament for approving the 2021 budget statement and economic policy document.

Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah who was speaking at the Minister’s press briefing in Accra on Sunday, March 21, 2021, said the government is grateful to the legislature for expediting the approval of the economic policy document to pave way for the government to embark on its policies and programmes for the year.

“The executive branch of government is grateful to Parliament for the approval of the 2021 economic policy document last Friday, March 19. The economic policy for 2021 seeks to engineer first of all a recovery from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and then secondly an accelerated rebound to growth and expansion of the Ghanaian economy starting from this year 2021. In particular, it seeks to reduce our deficit which is escalated from the 4.8 that we brought it to by 2019 to 11% plus because of COVID-19 and related matters.”

“The first part of this recovery programme seeks to bring it back on the part to sustainability over the next four years to about 9% this year, 7% in 2022, 5% by 2023 and under 5% by 2024 and this is critical to restore debt sustainability and to restore strong micro-foundations to propel the medium term and in the future growth agenda that we are looking for,” he added.

Parliament last Friday passed the budget statement and economic policy for the 2021 fiscal year. The budget, christened “won ya wo hie” seeks to rebound an economy that has been dealt a blow by the coronavirus pandemic through programmes such as the Ghana Cares “Obaatanpa”.

This the Minister called on all stakeholders to support the government in its recovery programmes and policies to rebound the economy and get it back to its previous state. He stressed that for the government to be able to succeed in its plan to recover the economy it needs adequate support from all stakeholders.