Budget review: We’re making progress, we won’t ask for more money – Ofori-Atta

The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, says the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government will not ask Parliament for any additional money.

According to him, this was necessitated by the progress made in non-oil tax revenue collection within the year.

The Finance Minister made these remarks when he presented the mid-year budget review in Parliament on July 31.

“For the first six months of the year, we continue making progress to exceed our non-oil revenue targets for the year. We have seen improvements in non-oil tax revenue collection despite some noticeable shortfalls in VAT.

“However, oil revenues have fallen short of expectations due to changes in global prices. We will, therefore, undertake a downward review of the oil-related revenue as well as the corresponding expenditures to align with the underperformance of some of our revenue handles. Specifically, this will impact the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA),” the Finance Minister said.

Mr Ofori-Atta also attributed the decision not to ask for additional money to the completion of aspects of the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme.

Parliament in November 2022 gave the government the green light to spend GH¢227.7 billion in 2023.

However, during the budget review, Ofori-Atta remarked that due to the reduction in the foreign-financed CAPEX, the Appropriation has been revised from GH¢227.7 billion to GH¢206.0 billion.

“Mr. Speaker, in view of the reason outlined above, as well as the lower domestic interest payment and amortization, following the completion of a part of the DDEP, and the reduction in the foreign-financed CAPEX, the Appropriation has been revised from GHS227.7 billion as presented and approved in November 2022 to GHS206.0 billion.

“This is in line with Regulation 24 sub-regulation (3) of the Public Financial Management Act Regulations 2019 (L.I. 2378).  Mr Speaker, we will, therefore, not require a Supplementary Budget,” he stated.