Clearly this government has a lot of projects which seem to shoot up expenditure over revenue. Now they have brought up the Rearing for Food and Jobs Initiative to compliment the Planting for Food and Jobs in the Agric sector and we expect to hear how the new initiative is going to financed and sustained.

We’ve already heard news of NABCO beneficiaries not receiving their allowances for some months so people will be interested to hear what measures government will be putting in place to prevent the re-occurrence of such things. Also now is the time for government to give the people hard-core figures on 1D1F and 1V1D because it has been almost 3 years in power and most people will want to know how many of these projects have been finished and how many are at different stages of completion.

Government also promised to expand the facilities at the SHS institutions to absorb the increased number of students under Free SHS. There needs to be an update on that. People will want to know the updates on other infrastructural projects such as Phase 2 of the port expansion project. It is also expected that government will scrap or make amendments to the luxury taxes that were introduced in the last budget since there have been concerns raised by numerous stakeholders.

I’m still urging government to tax mobile money transactions to raise more revenue. Imagine if GH¢100 is sent a 100 times on mobile money, it all vanishes into charges for the operator with nothing going to the government.

by Mohammed Abubakari
Economist