'Government likely to miss target to reduce grants by 10% for goods and services' – SEND Ghana

SEND Ghana has warned that government is likely to not achieve its target of reducing grants by 10% to finance goods and services and CAPEX by 2023 due to its over-dependence on funds from development partners and donors.

SEND Ghana after assessing Ghana’s budget from 2019 to 2023, covering 5 ministries; Health, Education, Agriculture, Sanitation and Water Resources, as well as Children and Social Protection, revealed that government’s contribution to the capital expenditure continue to decline.

According to SEND Ghana, government’s contribution in the 2023 percent has reduced from 8.48 percent in 2022 to 1.8 percent, while external support accounts for 92.22 percent of the total allocation.

The social advocacy group believes that Ghana’s goal of reducing grants by 10 percent and its dream of a Ghana Beyond Aid is unattainable should they continue to rely heavily on external donors.

“With this trend, the government will most likely miss its target to reducing grants by 10% to finance Goods and Service and CAPEX by 2023 as envisioned in the Ghana Beyond Aid strategy document. The government must there take concrete steps to reduce the over-reliance on aid from donor partners,” parts of a press release from SEND Ghana read.

SEND Ghana also noted that the current global economic instability has made donor funds to governments inconsistent hence an over-reliance on development donors by the government could prove counterproductive and prevent government from embarking on major projects in the near future.

“It has become apparent that donor funds are gradually dwindling, hence over-reliance on external support is counterproductive and could prove problematic in the near future. Again, considering the global economic turbulence, the government runs the risk of not mobilizing the required funding from DPs which will in turn affect actual releases to finance Agriculture and WASH interventions for 2023,” SEND Ghana added.

The social advocacy group made this known in a press statement released on Thursday, December 1, 2022.



EAN/ESA