Common Fund For 2014 To Be Paid In 2016, 2017

Government has planned to settle third and fourth quarter arrears of the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) in 2016 and 2017 financial years while �plans are far advanced to settle up to the second quarter of the arrears by the end of 2014.� As at September 2014, outstanding payment of DACF was GHC410,223,600.00 while that of National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) stood at GHC1,033,920,000.00; GETFund, GHC379,558,315.00 and social security payment stood at GHC948,052,418.00. These were contained in the report of the Finance Committee on the 2015 annual budget estimates of other government obligations. According to the committee's report, it was observed that government had spent an amount of GHC25, 000,000.00 on petroleum subsidies in 2014 and a total amount of GHC50, 000,000.00 has also been allocated to cover payment of petroleum subsidies in 2015. The report further stated that �officials of the Finance Ministry explained that the assumption underlying the 2015 allocation is that the automatic petroleum price adjustment will continue in 2015. The allocation therefore intended to pay for any excess that may arise in the course of the cross subsidy implementation.� On social security payments, the committee noted that employers� contribution of social security has been projected as 10.3 per cent of estimated wage bill for 2015 instead of the actual statutory figure of 13.5 per cent of basic salary. It was explained that �the 2015 estimated wage bill actually comprises other elements on which social security is not payable. Therefore projecting the social security contribution at the 13.5 per cent may leads to double counting and over-estimation.� In addition, �the current system makes it difficult to isolate the component of the wage bill on which social security is applicable and deductible and as such the projections are currently based on five-year average of social security payments by government.� On transfer to Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), the committee noted that the 2015 budget earmarked the sum of GHC679, 688,578.00 for the Corporation and explained that the estimated transfer to GNPC is in respect of GNPC's equity financing cost and its share of net carried and participating interest in line with section 7 of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act 2011, (Act, 815). The committee thus recommended to the House to approve the sum of GHC21,974963,253.00 for the discharge of other government obligations for the 2015 financial year including, domestic interest payments, external interest payments, pensions, gratuities, social security, subsidies on petroleum products, DACF, NHIF and GETFund. Other commitments are road fund, petroleum related fund, transfer to GNPC, lifeline consumers of electricity, tax expenditure, tax refund, road arrears, non-road arrears and amortization.