Cancel Ex-gratia of the Executives and Parliamentarians cut salaries in the First Quarter Budget of 2021 in the Interest of Sick Ghana

By: Dr Kwame H. Afaglo
Being a
Thursday morning 5th November 2020 and after the rains in Accra, heads are calm
as we approaching the end of the week with workers hoping to cash out their
salaries, hence taking time to go through this short write of 59 seconds
reading could be done comfortably.
A week ago, the
Finance Minister did seek permission from Ghana’s parliament to get an approval
for twenty seven billion cedis (GHc27,000,000,000.00) to be taken from the
Consolidated Fund for January-March 2021
expenditures for the following purposes:
⛔️ Salaries of public sector
workers and ex-gratia of numerous elected political officers of GHc7 billion;
▪️Loan interest
repayment of GHc3 billion;
▪️Repayment of
loans on installment plan of GHc3 billion;
⛔️ borrow more as bonds of GHc5
billion;
▪️Purchases of
goods and services to run the public sector, and few more.
As a starter,
Ghana does not have enough in its Consolidated Funds else it would not go
borrowing nicely and deceptively named *bonds*.
Then, a
simplistic looking at expenditure that can be changed for the benefit of a
highly geared country points to about GHc12 billion that can be relooked at by
parliamentarians and have the majority side to ask the Finance Minister to go
back and amend their expenditure.
The suggested
expenditure meant for radical changes are,
⛔️ Salaries and ex-gratia of
elected politicians.
⛔️ Borrowing.
Specifically,
in the interest of slowing down the nation’s borrowing, the majority in
parliament must halt the planned borrowing of GHc5 billion.
Then, the
controversial but most needed cancellation of ex-gratia payment to the
executives and parliamentarians. The law on ex-gratia to the executives and
parliamentarians must be suspended forthrightly to save the tax payer, tax
man’s performance and the country’s wallet (Consolidated Fund).
Further,
salaries of all political appointees in public service must be reduced by 50%
and that of public servants be docked by 25%, for the first three months.
This way
everyone is sacrificing for the economy of Ghana in the short term for a long
term benefit.
_Nyee gbe dze
anyi_
©️2020 rafa
raja
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