The Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo administration won’t request any additional funding from Parliament, according to Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta.
He claimed that the growth in the collection of non-oil tax revenue during the year made this necessary.
These comments were made by the finance minister on July 31 in Parliament when he delivered the mid-year budget review.
We are making strides to surpass our non-oil revenue goals for the year throughout the first half of the year. Despite some observable VAT gaps, we have observed gains in non-oil tax revenue collection.
“However, due to fluctuations in international pricing, oil income have fallen short of projections. In order to correlate with the underperformance of some of our revenue channels, we will consequently conduct a downward evaluation of the oil-related income as well as the corresponding expenditures. The Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) in particular will be affected, the Finance Minister warned.
The conclusion of some components of the Domestic Debt Exchange Program, according to Mr. Ofori-Atta, was another factor in his decision not to request more funding.
The government was given the go-ahead to spend GH227.7 billion in 2023 by Parliament in November 2022.
However, Ofori-Atta said at the budget review that the Appropriation had been changed from GH227.7 billion to GH206.0 billion as a result of the decrease in CAPEX supported by foreign sources.
“Mr. Speaker, taking into account the aforementioned factors, as well as the lower domestic interest payment and amortization due to the completion of a portion of the DDEP and the decrease in the amount of CAPEX financed by foreign sources, the Appropriation has been revised from GHS227.7 billion to GHS206.0 billion as of November 2022, when it was originally presented and approved.
According to Regulation 24 Sub-Regulation (3) of the Public Financial Management Act Regulations 2019 (L.I. 2378), this is in accordance. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, we won’t need a supplemental budget, he said.
