Parliament and Finance Minister disagrees on budget allocation to the legislature
The budgetary allocation for Ghana’s legislature has sparked some impasse between the legislature and finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin has hinted.
The Speaker has revealed that the Finance Minister does not agree with the legislature’s request that an allocation of 2% of the total revenue of the state should be made to the house.
This could have accounted for the over two hours delay before the presentation of the 2022 Economic Policy and Budget statement.
In revealing the issue for the first time during the Post-Budget workshop in the Volta Regional capital Ho, over the weekend, Mr. Bagbin stated that the allocation was necessary to adequately resource Parliament.
“We proposed the paltry sum of the 2% of the total revenue of the State to be allocated to Parliament next year. The Minister vehemently disagrees with us, but he wants us to approve his budget. It is not a threat, it is just a reminder [to the Finance Minister]. We have been fighting for this for some time now,” Alban Bagbin said.
Initially, Alban Bagbin had raised this same issue threatening to stop processes leading to the approval of the 2021 budget estimates if the Executive goes ahead with its plans to cap budgetary allocation to the law-making body.
This issue was sparked following a letter from Executive Secretary to the President, Nana Bediatuo Asante to the legislature, telling the House of the government’s decision to reduce their budget by over GHS190 million and that of the Judiciary by over GHS70 million.
But the Speaker has indicated that this is legally wrong and a step towards weakening the oversight duties of Parliament.
“The budget is not for the Executive, we have the final power to approve or disapprove and so what the Constitution has done is for them to make recommendations and to negotiate during the deliberations of the budget before the House,” he said.
Bagbin added that “it is not for the Executive to impose a ceiling on the Judiciary and Parliament, we have to do the proper thing and so during the consideration of the estimates particularly the Committees concerned, take that on board. At the end of the day, come and inform us as to the negotiated figure, not the ceiling that has been given by the President,” he added.
By: Stella Annan | myactiveonline.com Twitter @activetvgh
