IMF, labour agitations: See 10 cuts Ablakwa has suggested to Govt

The Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has suggested 10 expenditure cuts including a suspension of the construction of the National Cathedral in the face of an IMF bailout and labour agitations.

The cuts suggested by the opposition MP also include a ban on all presidential chartered jet travels, an immediate review of Ghana’s end-of-service benefits regime and the scrapping of all ex-gratia payments for political and non-political beneficiaries.

He also wants the President to "drastically reduce the number of Ministers, abolish Deputy CEO positions, dismiss the CEO for the ridiculous non-existent Keta Port and slash the outrageous 337 political appointees at the Office of the President by more than half".

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Read his entire post below;

My selection of urgent expenditure cuts and concrete actions required in the face of an IMF bailout and crippling labour agitations:

1) Suspend the unconstitutional public funding of the US$400million National Cathedral project which the government has so far diverted over GHS200million without parliamentary approval;

2) Renegotiate with owners of demolished properties at the National Cathedral location for a deferred compensation and save an estimated US$100million;

3) Ban all oligarchic presidential chartered jet travels which have cost suffering taxpayers in excess of GHS34million over the last 13 months;

4) Announce an immediate review of Ghana’s end of service benefits regime and scrap all ex-gratia payments for political and non-political beneficiaries;

5) Drastically reduce the number of Ministers, abolish Deputy CEO positions, dismiss the CEO for the ridiculous non-existent Keta Port and slash the outrageous 337 political appointees at the Office of the President by more than half;

6) Cancel vanity projects such as the proposed new €116million new Accra International Conference Centre project, 5 STEM universities, Boankra Green Technology City, Marine Drive Project, Stadia for Abuakwa and Sunyani, Agenda 111, new embassies in Trinidad and Tobago and Mexico;

7) Reallocate funds from government’s lavish GHS993million contingency vote (up by 431.5% from 186million in 2021) to other critical sectors such as meeting COLA demands of suffering Ghanaian workers;

8)Parliament should also shelve plans to construct new constituency offices for MPs;

9) Stop all ongoing opaque and crony procurement processes, particularly in the Communications and Digitalisation space where a Nigerian-led cabal have literally hijacked virtually every government contract (Further exposition on this to follow shortly);

10) The Executive, Legislature and Civil Society Organisations should jointly commission a special “Operation Retrieve and Recover” to take back billions of taxpayer funds in the wrong hands as revealed in various Auditor-General Reports over the last 10 years.