MP for Ningo Prampram, Sam Nartey-George, has urged government to put good measures in place to tackle the country’s economic woes.
He said this can be done if the Executive arm of the government cut down on its expenditure.
“Government must lead the way. If we’re in austere times and want to introduce austerity measures, we must begin to see austerity on those controlling the purse strings.
“Generally, one of the things that we need to do is to look at the expenditure of the Executive and look the areas where we can possibly and truly cut. For example, the Finance Minister once said he’s cutting 20% of expenditure from the budget.
“That comment was made four months ago. Up till now, the fine details of which part of the budget we’re doing this cut from is not known to the general public,” he said.
He also bemoaned what he described as a significant increase in funds allocated to the Office of the President in the 2022 Budget.
“When we’re being told that we should tighten our belt, but the office of the President’s budget has been increased from 2.3 billion to 3.2 billion, which is almost a 50% increase in their expenditure. So government must lead by example,” he said.
He added that government should also adopt practical steps aimed at blocking loopholes (with regards to misappropriating of funds) in the system.
“There are too many loopholes in the system. You look at the Auditor-General’s report in 2016; we had ¢700 million misapplied, which we said was wrong. Four years down the line, in 2020, we moved from ¢700 million to ¢12 billion.
“Those are things we need to begin to look at and plug those loopholes,” he said.
