Business News of 2012-10-31

2013 Interim budget provides GHC 6 billion for gov’t expenditure

The Interim 2013 budget is making available a little over 6 billion cedi to take care of government’s expenditure in the first quarter of next year.

This will cover interest payments, compensation of employees, statutory payments and subsidies.

The 2013 budget estimates also revealed that the country will be able to mobilize 4.3 billion cedis in revenue for the first quarter of next year.

It will however spend almost 1 billion cedis more than what it has been able to collect as income.

The estimates have therefore put in place measures to ensure that none of the approved amount is used to defray indebtedness carried over from 2012.

It has also put in place strict mechanisms to ensure that every Ministry, Department and Agency stick to its budget approvals.

The 2013 estimates or accounts are not the actual budget for next year, but a temporary provision to ensure that government business does not grind to a halt in the first quarter of next year.

Government in the 2012 budget is planning to spend a little over 19 billion Ghana cedis.