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General Secretary of the Peoples’ National Convention Party (NPP), Bernard Mornah says the 2016 budget was not only predictable in failing to address the critical development challenges confronting the country, it also imposes hardship on the people.

He sees very little attempt to spend to bridge the gaping development gaps widespread across the country, and this he says is because the government has conspired to mortgage the country to the European Union.

Mornah sees the hands of the International Monetary Fund at work in these decisions to impose an austere budget on the people, a budget that will merely supervise existing projects and ensure Ghana does not add on to expenditure through new projects to improve the lot of its people because that is the IMF’s condition for supporting Ghana’s economy.

“If you take a critical look at the budget that was presented, it tells clearly that new development issues are coming up, (but) it is just a recycling of what we saw in 2015 that is coming up in 2016. It is the same old infrastructure that has been re-catalogued and in some instances they have told us the levels of conclusions that we have come to. So you have the Ridge Hospital, you have the Wa Hospital, you have the Legon Medical Centre - these are the things that again recurred in the 2016 budget.”

Bernard Mornah made the assertions while contributing to a discussion on the 2016 budget and the political economy of Ghana with reference to the energy situation and related issues on Radio Gold, and said there can be no joy in saying Ghana has a high GDP when a bigger chunk of all the country’s productivity is in the hands of multinationals.