The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, will tentatively be presenting the supplementary budget and mid-year review of the 2019 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the government in Parliament on Monday, July 29.
This was made known by the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, in Parliament yesterday when he presented the business statement for the ensuing week which would be last week in the second meeting of the third session before the House rises on Friday, August 2, for its long vacation.
The mid-year review has been postponed on three occasions but Monday has been fixed for the minister to present it.
The Deputy Minister of Finance, Abena Osei-Asare, told pressmen yesterday that the mid-year review would definitely address the concerns of Ghanaians.
According to her, how to meet the revenue targets of the government would be addressed and probably how revenue could be maximized would also be tackled.
She said Ghanaians must expect good news on Monday from the finance minister.
However, the ranking member of the Finance Committee of Parliament and National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament told the press yesterday that Ghanaians must rather tighten their belts for the mid-year review.
According to him, he has reliable information that the government is about to introduce more taxes to raise more revenue and increase petroleum prices.
He said Ghanaians should expect more hardship after the mid-year review of the 2019 budget on Monday.
He passionately appealed to the finance minister that the capping of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), the Road Fund and the National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL) is seriously affecting the education, road and health sectors respectively, and that it would be prudent for the government to stop the capping of those funds so that a lot more money could be fed into them to bring more development.
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