Akoto Osei rallies support to reject 2015 budget

Minority spokesperson on finance, Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei, is championing a crusade in Parliament to get the 2015 budget rejected by the House.

The Member of Parliament for Old Tafo, for instance cited the failure of government to remit workers contributions to the pensions fund as stipulated under the Pensions Act as one of the reasons why the budget should not be approved.

According to him, information available to him suggests that the government has not transferred the deducted amount into the appropriate kitty since the beginning of 2014. This, he said, is a violation of the Pensions Act.

The Pensions Act stipulates that if an employer fails to transfer workers’ contributions within 14 days from the end of each month it would be liable to a 3% penalty.

Early this month, Joy News intercepted a report by the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) to Parliament revealing that government through the Controller and Accountant General has failed to transfer more than 200 million cedis of workers’ pension contributions to the designated Bank of Ghana account.

Dr. Akoto Osei also argued that the budget should not be approved because the government failed to achieve all the targets it set for itself in 2014.

The MP decried the rising inflation and the increasing public debt and appealed to his colleagues to reject the budget many have described as an austere budget. For 2014, the government predicted an inflation target of 9.5 percent, plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Government also targeted economic growth of 8 percent in 2014 as well as to trim its budget deficit to 8.5 percent of gross domestic product.

But the Ghana Statistical Service announced that inflation for October 2014 has hit 16.9 percent.