The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, is scheduled to present the mid-year budget review to parliament on Thursday 23rd July, 2020.

This is in accordance with Section 28 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921).

According to Citi Business News sources, the presentation of the statement on the review of government projections for the 2020 financial year will be backed by a request for supplementary estimates.

Government projections for the 2020 financial year have largely been affected by the economic implications of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Minister is also be expected to provide to Parliament a clear plan on how the government intends to pay back the GHS10 billion it borrowed from the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the 219 million dollars transferred from the Stabilization Fund to the Contingency Fund to help deal with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Any additional borrowing to finance expenditure risky for economy – Adu Sarkodie
An Economist, Dr. Adu Owusu Sarkodie, says the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta should be able to outline the progress made so far with the allocation of support under the government’s Coronavirus Alleviation Programme when he presents the Mid-year budget review to Parliament.

Dr. Sarkodie says limiting budgetary allocation is critical, since an increase is likely to impact the country’s budget deficit, which is the difference between the revenue and expenditure.

For instance, in 2020, Mr. Ofori-Atta anticipated that government would rake in an amount of 67.1 billion cedis as revenue, while an amount of about 86 billion cedis will be spent on various projects.

This in itself presented an initial budget deficit of 19 billion cedis.

For Dr. Adu Sarkodie, the presentation should see a review of all key economic indicators. These include; growth rate, primary balance, budget deficit, revenue and expenditure targets, among others.

Source: Citibusinessnews.com