Annual budgets: Time to make a real difference

Yesterday, the Minister of Finance, Mr Seth Terkper, assured the country of the government’s resolve to resist budget overruns in this election year and pledged to sustain fiscal discipline even as it invests prudently in infrastructure and social development.

Delivering his mid-year review budget and supplementary estimates for the 2016 financial year in Parliament yesterday, the minister said the fiscal deficit would be lowered again to five per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) this year, after a strong reduction to 6.3 per cent of GDP in 2015.

Although he requested Parliament to approve additional spending of almost GH¢1.9 billion by the government, his spending plans showed that the funds would be used to amortise government debt and so would not affect the net fiscal balance. 

These and other pronouncements in the review budget indicate a positive trend as far as the management of the economy is concerned, in spite of the myriad of challenges that the country is grappling with. 

These challenges include the energy crisis which has taken a new dimension after a few months of respite. With energy at the heart of production and economic viability, the ongoing load-shedding exercise is worrisome and deserves much more pragmatic attention than the present actions.

Again, some other sectors of the economy which hitherto were helping to boost GDP growth are now under-performing, a situation which is negatively impacting on job creation. These sectors include crops, mining and quarrying (especially gold), as well as the manufacturing and electricity sub-sectors of the economy.

The industrial sector continues to suffer a fair share of the difficulties within the economy. 

The Daily Graphic believes that so long as energy sector challenges continue, very little can be done to revive the ailing industrial sector.

Also worth mentioning is the rising cost of borrowing. This canker, which has persisted for many years, is another albatross hanging on the necks of industry and all other players within the economy. Inflation, which many had expected would be tackled head-on, is still in the double digits.

At the end of the day, these fundamental issues are causing ordinary people on the street to complain because these bottlenecks are making it difficult for people to eke out a living.

The Daily Graphic strongly believes that economic management in an era when the global economic situation is not at its best is difficult, and that is why we call on the managers to be more innovative in their initiatives to take us out of the wood.

We also remind all that nation building, including the budget, is not an event but a process. However, we must say without any equivocation that the process has taken too long to yield results for the good of the people.

The Daily Graphic is, however, optimistic about the future, just as the finance minister reiterated at his engagement with the representatives of the people in Parliament.

According to him, brighter days are next door, and we cannot wait to see them. 

The Daily Graphic calls on all to support the government in its efforts to turn the economy around.