Ghana Parliament approves GH¢129b Appropriation for 2021
Parliament has approved over GH¢129 billion from the Consolidated Fund to finance government operations for the financial year January 1, 2021, to December 31, 2021.
This figure is contained in the 2021 Appropriation Bill passed by the House into law under Article 106(13) of the 1992 Constitution and Order 119 of the Standing Orders of the House.
The breakdown of the budget expenditure is: GH¢30.3billion for Compensation of Employees, Goods and Services GH¢5.97 billion, Interest payments GH¢35.9 billion, Subsidies GH¢247.7 million, Grants to other government units GH¢18.1 billion and GH¢165.1 million.
The rest are other expenditure GH¢7.9 billion, Energy Sector Levy Act (ESLA) Transfer GH¢2.98 billion, COVID-19 Expenditure GH¢4.51 billion, Capital Expenditure GH¢11.53 billion, Arrears GH¢3.7 billion and Amortization GH¢15.3 billion.
Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Leader of Government Business moving the motion to consider the appropriation observed that Ministries, Departments and Agencies would be permitted to retain and use an amount of GH¢5,893,772,350 of their Internally Generated Funds (IGF) during the 2021 financial year.
He explained that out of the total amount of GH¢129,032,804,201 estimated expenditure in 2021, GH¢80,869,525,482 would constitute payments of other government obligations whilst the rest would cover discretionary payments.
He said the Appropriation Bill, 2021 repeals the Appropriation Act, 2019 (Act 1008), which authorized the withdrawal of money from the Consolidated Fund and other public funds for the implementation of the Budget for the 2020 financial year.
Mr Kwaku Kwarteng, Chairman of the Finance Committee presented the committee’s report, and noted that the GH¢129 billion authorized from the Consolidated Fund is to finance government expenditure for the financial year January 1, 2021, to December 31, 2021.
He said this amount contained in the 2021 Appropriation Bill has been passed into law per the 1992 Constitution and the Standing Orders of the House.
Mr Cassiel Ato Forson, Ranking Member on Finance in his contribution, stated that the government in the budget statement proposed to raise Eurobond of GH¢24.5billion to finance the appropriation for the year 2021.
He said the government had gone to the international market with the hope of raising $5 billion Eurobond to finance the budget but was successful in raising only GH¢3 billion meaning the appropriation would have challenges with its funding gap.
He said that even before the House approved the current appropriation it already had a funding gap of about GH¢6 billion and called on the Finance Minister to tell the House how the Government intended to raise GH¢129 billion budget expenditure.
Source: GNA