Parliament approves GH¢6.3 billion supplementary budget

Parliament has approved the GH¢6.3 billion requested by the Finance Minister, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, as extra expenditure for the 2019 financial year.

In spite of the minority’s opposition to the budget statement, the house through a majority voice vote approved the request by the finance minister.

Meanwhile, Parliament’s Finance Committee has been tasked to deliberate on the proposed tax increases which accompanied the supplementary estimates and present a report for the House’s consideration.“>

Supplementary estimate

The motion for the supplementary estimate was moved by the Minister of Finance when he presented the mid-year review of the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the government last Monday.

Parliament will now have to amend the Appropriation Act, Act 984, which gave the Minister of Finance the authority to expend GH¢78.77 billion from the Consolidation Fund and other public funds.

The motion for the approval of the GH¢6.37 billion was seconded by the Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for New Juaben South, Dr Mark Assibey-Yeboah, last Tuesday.

Consequently, Majority and Minority MPs slugged it out in the debate on the mid-year budget as to the true state of the country’s economy.

Economic indicators

While the Majority MPs were of the view that macro and micro economic indicators such as inflation rate, exchange rate, interest rate and the health of industry had improved, the Minority members argued that the economy was in tatters and that Ghanaians were going through hardship.

Other areas that the debate focused on included education, communication and transportation.

Mr Ofori-Atta proposed the scrapping of the Luxury Vehicle Levy introduced in 2018.

“Government in 2018 introduced the Luxury Vehicles Levy to raise revenue.

We have noticed suggestions from the general public on the implementation of this tax, and as a listening government we are proposing the withdrawal of the levy to the House,” he said.