The Majority and Minority members of Parliament last Friday shared contrasting views of the 2026 budget statement, with the Majority touting it as offering a deeper sense of hope and the Minority warning Ghanaians to take the statement with a pinch of salt.
Contributing to the debate on the budget statement last Friday, the NDC MP for Wa West, Peter Lanchene Toobu, said the 2026 budget was anchored on a solid vision to build a prosperous, fair, democratic Ghana, anchored and equal opportunity for all.
“Mr Speaker, I am excited that this is a budget of hope”, he said, adding that the current budget did not come with any slogans and biblical quotations to mislead the people.
Countering, the New Patriotic Party MP for Offinso South, Dr Isaac Yaw Opoku, said Ghanaians wanted the NDC to do an audit and tell them which of the promises they intended to keep and which ones they intended to abandon.
He recalled how, in spite of sweet promises the NDC made to cocoa farmers in the run-up to the 2024 elections, including increasing cocoa farm gate prices, they continually failed to honour the promise.
Ghanaians living with dignity
Leading the argument, Mr Toobu said it had become clear that the Minority often waxed lyrically while in opposition with some brilliant ideas but when they found themselves in government, it was “always a disaster”.
He said he could not believe that the previous administration could buy aircraft for the Ghana Police Service and “as we sit, you have never seen one flying”.
“And they have the guts to be talking about aircraft as if they have the knowledge of what to do,” he said
He said the 2026 budget was anchored on a solid vision in which “we seek a nation where every Ghanaian can live with dignity, earn a decent livelihood and contribute to a future that reflects our shared values and collective ambition.”
With regard to retooling the armed forces and the security sector, Mr Toobu, who is the Vice-Chairperson of the Defence and Interior Committee, said the NDC government was bent on retooling the Ghana Armed Forces because the armed forces “is our pride”.
He said the government would purchase two more aircraft (one long-range and one medium-range) and two offshore patrol vessels for the Navy.
Deceitful promises
In a counter argument, Dr Opoku, who is the Ranking Member on the Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs Committee, asked Ghanaians to pray for former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo since he was the one who moved the farm gate price of cocoa from GH¢475 to GH¢3,100 per bag.
“Mr Speaker, today a dying industry and an insolvent industry has received $2.6 billion in deposits,” he said, quoting paragraph 292 of the 2025 budget statement. He also described how Majority MPs, during the budget presentation, became excited since the production of cocoa had gone from 530,783 to 603,840 metric tonnes.
He, therefore, said if the cocoa industry was going to collapse, it would do so under the NDC and not the NPP.
For 33 years, he argued, COCOBOD was borrowing from the international market to finance its operations and President Akufo-Addo tasked COCOBOD to develop a model to make it self-financing.
