The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, will present the 2022 Mid-Year Budget Review in Parliament later today, July 25.
Mr. Ofori-Atta was scheduled to deliver the address on Wednesday, July 13, but the date was changed due to the negotiations between government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The postponement was to allow the government to possibly make some recommendations to the budget.
Meanwhile, the Minister is also expected to make his first official comments on this decision, after publicly stating that the country would not go to the IMF.
He will equally provide information on how revenue and expenditure had performed in the first half of the year and the country’s current budget deficit figures.
Ahead of that, some stakeholders have been sharing their expectations.
For instance, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mark Badu Aboagye, has urged government to use the review to sustain and improve upon the investor confidence generated by IMF’s visits.
According to him, while Ghana has started to fare better on the international market following the government’s IMF announcement, it was important for the Finance Ministry to announce policies that will improve the local market as well.
Speaking in an interview on JoyNews, he stressed that improving the local market should not be an excuse for the government to introduce more crippling taxes.
“I think after the announcement of the IMF coming in, there has been some level of confidence in the Ghanaian economy, and this has reflected in the performance of our bonds in the international market. But we also have to look at the local factor, what can we do?
“So, we’re expecting that the mid-year review we will rather also inspire more confidence in the economy, and that will come when there are proper policies that are being outlined to solve most of the challenges that we are having,” he said.
