The Minister
of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, has assured that the government remained focused
on driving the economy out of the current economic challenges.
He
said the government has a track record of navigating its way around the
challenges and thus called on the citizens to have faith for a quicker return
to stability.
The
minister said the government was prioritising fiscal discipline, which involved
sticking to agreed targets, cutting expenditures when revenues are
underperforming and ensuring prudent spending to get value for money.
Presenting his
sixth in the row mid year budget review to Parliament Monday (July 15, 2022),
Mr Ofori-Atta sought to rally the nation behind the government in a march
against the grueling high cost of living that is manifesting in soaring price
jumps, a weak currency and low economic activities.
“With
discipline, dedication and hard work, we will overcome the current challenges
that confront our nation,” he said.
“We
are convinced we can do this again. We worked closely with Ghanaians to turn
around the economic situation in 2017,” he said.
In line with
the commitment to fiscal discipline, the minister said revenue and expenditure
targets for the year had been revised downwards to reflect the pressure that
the remnants of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia/Ukraine crisis was
impacting on the economy.
“Mr
Speaker, in the immediate term, we will strengthen our focus on efficiency in
our fiscal operations and transformation efforts.
To
this end, we are aggressively improving revenue mobilisation by adopting more
innovative and comprehensive approaches including technology, rationalising
expenditures, adopting policies to address inflation, promoting production and
improving productivity, including implementing the Ghana CARES and YouStart
programmes and exploring innovative financing as illustrated by the recently
approved US$750 million African Export-Import (Afrexim) Facility,” he added.
Source: Graphic.com.gh