Mid-year budget review: NPP taking credit for ‘nothing’ – Inusah Fuseini

Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, Inusah Fuseini has accused the governing New Patriotic Party of taking undue credit for solving the country’s economic woes when they, in actual fact, have done absolutely nothing to prove it.

Speaking on Joynews’ Newsfile show Saturday, August 5, Mr. Fuseini indicated that government is dwelling on past glory and policy initiatives of the NDC rather than initiating its own projects and policies to help grow the economy of the country.

He cited the TEN Oil field, indicating that government is taking credit for the income it is generating for the country when it merely commissioned the project initiated by the past NDC administration.

“For us, NPP is taking credit where they ought not to take credit, why is the oil sector growing? We had known, we had put in place policies and the oil sector itself grew by 58.9%, basically based on the 10 projects and the increase in production at the Jubilee fields, this is not the work of the NPP, did they go to pump more oil out of the fields or did they bring the ten, they only went to commission the TEN fields”.

He said that the deficit reduction from 9.3% last year to 6.3% in the first quarter of the year is not as a result of major policies developed by the government; rather, he says, the NPP administration has failed to invest in expenditure and hence the lack of money in the system.

“You are talking about the deficit and you have not even gathered enough tax revenue and so you are not able to meet your deficit target, you underperform because there is no money in the system. We left a deficit of 9.3% that’s true, they came, they’ve reduced it to 6.3%; they are working at it…..but what we are saying is that, the deficit, the reduction itself, is not informed by any major policy underpinning; it is because they have failed to spend.”

“There is no money….you are not printing money and you are borrowing so, for us, whatever deficit they are recording now is largely due to the fact that there is no expenditure. Government is not even encouraging the private sector, why is the private sector complaining? You say interest rates are coming down, underpinned by the fact that inflation is dropping but cost of growing is not coming down, why? Because the system is not allowing for monies to go into the banks in such a way that the banks can lend to the private sector to create jobs,” he alleged.

Mr. Fuseini argued that the NDC administration was better with macroeconomic policies and effective management policies than the incumbent government.

“You can see a better economic arrangement under the NDC because even in the face of bad commodity prices on the world market, our local non-oil revenue grew by 6.3%”.

His comments come on the back of Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta’s presentation of the 2017 mid-year budget review in Parliament.

Mr. Ofori-Atta told Parliament in his mid-year review budget presentation that the macro-indicators for the first half of the year are pointing in the right direction.

Mr Ofori-Atta touted the economic credentials of the government including declining inflation, interest rate, increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), job creation, stable energy amongst others.

But the Minority at a press conference Wednesday addressed by former deputy Minister of Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson, questioned the veracity of the figures presented by the Minister.

According to him, the figures by the Minister were doctored to make government’s economic performance look good.