2011 budget must address inequalities across regions and districts - Humado

Dodowa, August 25, GNA- Mr. Clement Humado, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Poverty Reduction, on Wednesday said the 2011 budget must address the inequalities across regions and districts in the country to reduce poverty, deprivation and the vulnerability.

According to him, the budget must commit to making progress towards the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on poverty despite the turbulent external and internal economic situation.

.. Mr. Humado, also the Member of Parliament for Anlo, was speaking at a workshop organised for Parliamentarians, Civil Society Groups, the academia and development partners, to engage Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to review pro-poor budget allocations and programmes against the 2011 budget

He said despite the tremendous efforts in reducing poverty levels in Ghana, the blight of that effort had been the recent global economic melt down that had escalated food prices, unemployment and the reduced the purchasing power of the poor.

Mr. Humado said though the committee could assist in remedying the poverty situation, it was handicapped by a constitutional provision which barred it from increasing budgetary allocation in the Appropriation Bill.

He noted that it was for this reason that the committee held it so important to engage the MDAs on budget cycles to ensure that appropriate and adequate resources allocations were made in the national budget for pro-poor projects.

He stated that these projects were considered crucial for the attainment of the MDGs.

Mr. Humado said the committee was thankful that some of the inputs and recommendations made during the pre-budget discussions in 2009 had influenced the 2010 national budget currently under implementation.

Mr. Martin Eson-Benjamin, Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Development Authority, said the 547 million dollar 5-year programme under the Millennium Challenge Account funding was meant to directly impact 230 thousand farmers and their families and over one million other Ghanaians who provide artillery services to agricultural communities.

He said the programme amplified the objectives of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) without deviating from the approved policies of the government.

He noted that its budget was not a replacement for district budgets but a supplement to the development agenda of the districts as spelt out in the Medium Term Development Plans.

Mr. Eson-Benjamim said the lessons leant demonstrated that in the past years, donor contribution to Ghana's budget tended to deliver country focussed projects in an uncoordinated manner that might not respect the whole production chain.

He stated that in the absence of enforced good agricultural practices, the farmer did not have a clear view of the prospective customers leading to low productivity.

He noted that the farmer's problem deepened as he had no irrigable land and therefore did only a crop within a year.

"Production volumes remain low and therefore present an unreliable and unsustainable supply source" he said.

"In the absence of a good road networks, crops reach markets late and in poor quality as post-harvest infrastructures did not exist ", he said, adding, apart from cocoa, cotton and shea butter, there were no organised buying centres for farmers.

"At the end, the farmer grows old and weak but has no willing successor as the children run away from the harsh rural environment, devoid of good drinking water, electricity, schools and teachers", he noted.

Mr. Eson-Benjamin said the key issue that must engage the attention of all was therefore the development of a systematic way of supporting socioeconomic infrastructure to create economic growth.