Post-Budget Workshop For MPs Held

The Director General of the National Development Planning Commission, NDPC, Dr Regina Adutwum says in order to attain the Medium term National Development Goals, the State needs to ensure that the necessary space is created for increase investments in key national priority areas while ensuring that the dividend from economic growth benefit all. She said in order to accelerate development the Nation needs to ride on the back of agriculture to industrialize. Dr Regina Adutwum said this when she presented a paper on the Policy Framework of the 2014 Budget at the beginning of a two-day post-budget workshop for members of Parliament in the Chamber yesterday. The post-budget workshop was under the theme: �Retooling MPs for effective scrutiny of the 2014 Financial Policy of Government. Other key stakeholders also addressed the MPs. The Annual workshop for the MPs comes immediately after the budget is presented to the House. It is to expose the Members to the fine details captured in the budget to enable them to undertake a thorough debate and scrutiny of government financial policy for the year. The Director-General of the National Development Planning Commission, NDPC, Dr Regina Adutwum told the MPs that the Commission is working on a new medium term national development policy framework which will be a successor to the 2010-2013 Ghana Shared Growth Development Agenda, to guide the development of the country over the next four years. She announced that the seven thematic areas are under consideration in the new development framework. The Director of WTS Tax and Legal Consulting, Abdallah Ali-Nakyea who presented a paper on Revenue Mobilization touched on personal income tax, withholding tax on rent, review of the tax rate for the free zones enterprises, customs assurance and destination inspection among others as captured in the budget. Dr Nii Ashong of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, GIMPA took the MPs through the overview of the Macro-Economic and Fiscal Management of the budget while Eva Mends of the Budget Division of the Ministry of Finance gave a presentation on analyzing the sector budget, what the MPs should consider in approving the budget.