2018 budget: Brace yourself for worst times - Ricketts-Hagan tells Ghanaians

Former Deputy Finance Minister, Kwaku Ricketts-Hagan has admonished Ghanaians to brace themselves for the worst economic and living conditions ever experienced in the history of Ghana with the 2018 budget statement presented by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta on November 15.

According to him, the Akufo-Addo-led government has very little prospects of achieving their set targets particularly with regards to revenue generation, this he attributed to their projected policies and plans for the economy.

Inability to generate enough funds he explained, will lead to a situation where they are unable to invest in expenditure without which they can’t foster growth and development in the country.

“They will not realise the revenues they talked about, therefore they can’t fund the promises they have made, in the end what will happen is that, the deficit will be bigger against the projections they are giving, the growth is not going to come. If you don’t spend money on your expenditure to get the growth, you are not going to get the growth that you are talking about,” he stated.

He said that Ghanaians are set to experience more harsh economic conditions next year with the provisions made in the 2018 budget. According to him, the NPP administration only specializes in deceit, giving Ghanaians sugar-coated promises without any action.

“This government will tell you what you want to hear, in the end, they will do nothing… Things will be worse than it is next year, ask yourself whether you are better off now than you were last year and if the answer is no, please brace yourself, next year could be worse than this year.”

His comments come following Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta’s presentation of the 2018 budget in Parliament on Wednesday November 15, 2017.

The budget themed: “Putting Ghana back to work”, according to Mr. Ofori-Atta, will stabilise the economy and offer reliefs including reducing electricity tariffs to make the private sector truly competitive and create more employment.