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[ 2016-11-12 ] 
Government will not overspend this year – Dr. Kwesi Botchway
The National Development Planning Commission
(NDPC), has downplayed fears government will
overspend this year because it is an election
year.
Chairman of the Commission, Dr Kwesi Botchway,
believes government will stay within approved
expenditure levels partly due to Ghana’s current
commitment with the IMF program.
“We have a program that we are running with the
International Monetary Fund and there are
structures under this program; there is a budget,
there are expenditure profiles that have been all
agreed and the President has committed himself not
to breach this understanding. The President has
committed himself to ensure that there is no
expenditure over run in this election year. So
far, I have seen no evidence suggesting that this
promise would not be met,” he opined.
Available statistics indicate that Ghana’s
successive governments always over-run the
country’s budget during election years.
Ghana’s budget deficit for 2008 which was an
election year hit 24.2 percent of gross domestic
product as compared to the 8.5 percent in 2007
which was not an election year.
While in 2012, another election year, Ghana’s
budget deficit was a whopping 8.7 billion cedis
amounting to 12.1 percent of Gross Domestic
Product (GDP). But Dr. Botchway who was a Minister
of Finance under the Rawlings regime tells Citi
Business News he is confident government this time
round will not overspend.
“It will be a great thing if we avoid an
expenditure bench in this election year because we
pay dearly for it after the election. So I have
seen no sign of an expenditure bench, on the
contrary, I have seen a commitment to not over
spent in this election.”
Meanwhile, recent figures released by the Finance
Ministry has also shown that government’s
capital expenditure increased than projected
between January and July this year. This
notwithstanding, the expenditure for the period,
23.28 billion cedis, was within government’s
target of 23.88 billion cedis. Source - Citifmonline
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