The Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu has asked Parliament to set up a committee on economic planning.
This committee, he said would be tasked with conducting fiscal analysis on loans that the country contracts.
[contextly_sidebar id=”7iLot1e6j5TmU80wlwZO2G8adQC6F1Xv”] His comments follow the heated debate in Parliament yesterday over the real debt stock of the country with the minority and majority quoting different figures.
“The house should have a committee on the economy or economy planning. They should be responsible for financial analysis of our borrowing. This will allow us to know the net effect of the money borrow, and that can inform us whether to approve or not,” he said.
The Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo, has been put in charge of a committee set up to oversee actualisation of the Akufo-Addo Administration’s vision of a Ghana beyond aid.
President Nana Akufo-Addo announced the setting-up this committee at the May Day celebration at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium in Kumasi on Tuesday.
The Committee will draw a charter which outlines the steps the country is to take in making Ghana self-reliant.
The public sector wage bill continues to be the biggest threat to government expenditure, as a recent analysis by the Graphic Business (GB) revealed that wages and salaries for public sector employees consume almost half of all taxes collected every year.
In 2017, when tax revenue totalled GH¢32.2 billion, wages and salaries for public sector workers rose to GH¢14.4 billion, equivalent to 44.7 per cent of the year’s total taxes.
The 2017 wage bill was expended on some 650,000 people working in the public sector.
The analysis of fiscal data obtained from the Ministry of Finance further revealed a robust double-digit growth in the wage bill on an annual basis compared to total economic output, measured by gross domestic product (GDP), which has experienced single-digit over the past six years.
–
By: Farida Yusif/citinewsroom.com/Ghana
