Parliament to debate 2023 budget tomorrow

Members of Parliament (MPs) will on Tuesday, November 29, 2022, begin debate on the 2023 Budget Statement.

Ahead of the debate, Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo Markin, has outlined areas of concern saying, “on November 29, 2022, it’s expected that the debate will focus on Finance, Agriculture, Trade and Industry, and Wednesday Communications, Energy, Roads, Works, Housing, Sanitation and Environment and Thursday, December 1, it will be Health, Youth and Sports, Education, Tourism, Culture and Chieftaincy.”

A two-day workshop was organized over the weekend to empower lawmakers and offer them insights into the 2023 budget as they ready themselves for the debate on the floor.

Already the minority in Parliament is demanding a review of some revenue mobilization measures outlined in the budget such as scrapping of the daily minimum threshold exemption for E-Levy and a further reduction in the rate to 0.5%.

In an address at the post-budget workshop for MPs in Ho over the weekend, Minority leader Haruna Iddrisu warned the decision to freeze public sector employment and cut down of numbers admitted into teaching and nursing schools will further exacerbate the already worst unemployment canker.

The Tamale South MP warned though his side is willing to support the government’s effort in resuscitating the economy, the 2.5% increment in the VAT rate will be treated with the NPP’s Kume Preko demonstration against the introduction of the tax in 1995 in mind.

Majority leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu however called on the NDC MPs to support the government’s effort in addressing the economic crisis arguing the NDC also in the past opposed things that have ended up benefiting the country such as the discovery of oil in commercial quantities.