Atta Issah, Member of Parliament for Sagnarigu Constituency, has accused the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration of engaging in reckless borrowing.
For him, the kind of borrowing that happened under the previous administration resulted in their inability to complete projects such as Agenda 111.
Speaking on the Key Points on TV3 on Saturday, November 14 in relation to the 2027 budget statement, he said “But for the reckless borrowing of the previous government, the Agenda 111 project would have been completed.”
For his part, a technical advisor at the Ministry of Finance, Dr Theo Acheampong said that the Mahama administration was determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past administration that imposed severe hardships on Ghana.
To that end, he said that they had to take drastic decisions in order to avert the past mistake.
He cited the introduction of the commitment authorisation regime as one of the ways to bring a lot of sanity into the system.
“We realised that something drastic had to be done in order not to repeat the mistake of the past. The painful haircuts. Coming into the office, we said never again should we impose such hardships on our people,” he said on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday, November 14. While discussing the 2027 budget statement.
During the budget presentation, the Finance Minister, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson said that under the New Economy that the government is going to judge economic growth by the number of jobs it creates.
Also, he said the income that is generated will be used to assess the growth.
Dr Forson said this while reading the 2027 budget statement to parliament on Thursday, November 12.
“We will judge growth by the jobs and income it creates,” he said.
Dr Cassiel Ato Forson further assured Ghanaians that the government will protect the economic recovery.
He says the government will scale up fiscal discipline as part of the efforts to protect stability and present the benefits to the people of Ghana.
“Government will preserve stability. Government support to the private sector will be transparent. We will protect the recovery with fiscal discipline,” he said.
He further said that Ghana has made significant gains and emerged from its worst economic crisis.
He says that stability is restored, confidence is back, and Ghanaians can breathe again.
He said, “Ghana has made significant gains, has emerged from the most painful economic crisis in our history, stability has returned, confidence is back, and Ghanaians can breathe again.”
“The Ghanaian people paid heavy prices; the debt restructuring imposed severe hardships,”
Dr Forson further stated that “We [Ghana] have grown but we have not built enough resilience into that growth.”
Prior to the budget presentation, the Minister of Government Communications Felix Kwakye Ofosu said that the New Economy that will be announced by the Finance Minister in the 2027 budget statement will spell out clear plans to provide jobs for the youth.
He says the New Economy is not business as usual; it intends to serve a useful purpose.
“It is not business as usual; it creates jobs for the youth; it is a government programme intended to transform the economy over the next four years. 24-hour economy was never meant to be an event; it was a government initiative that brings incentives to the private sector,” he told TV3 ahead of the 2027 budget presentation on Thursday November 12.
“Substantial work has gone into it; yes, we are yet to realise the full scale of the programme,” he added.
