Asiedu Nketia, the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has questioned the government of who will be the gatekeeper over its austerity measures to reduce expenditure.
“How do we ensure the government strictly adheres to these measures put in place to address the challenges of the economy? I remember at the early stages of the Akufo- Addo-led administration, they placed ban on importation of cars for government appointees, but they have imported more Toyota Landcruisers including new brands like Lexus, if they are bringing up these new measures again, who will check they act accordingly?” he quizzed.
Mr Nketia indicated that though some of the measures put out by the government were good, they were not good enough to save the economy, and wanted more done to save the economy from completely collapse.
He noted that at least the government had listened to the clarion call of the people to reduce some of its unnecessary expenditure and lauded the government for its decision to cut travels of appointees as part of measures put in place to check the economy from deteriorating.
Mr Asiedu Nketia, however wondered who would act as the gatekeeper to ensure all the measures put in place by the government were followed to the letter saying “these are some of the issues I have been talking about and for some time now the government should begin to reduce monies spent unnecessarily on travels and place moratoriums on certain expenditures”.
According to him, as responsible opposition party, the NDC had done its part but the government should stop blaming its incompetence and inefficiencies on the Minority and pointed out that the passage of the Electronic Transaction (e-levy) Bill was not the only way to generate money for the economy.
Mr Nketia asked the government to stop apportioning blame and provide pragmatic solutions like what the NDC did under the leadership of John Mahama.
The government has outlined some measures to deal with current economic crisis and to help ensure growth and spending are not compromised which includes moratorium on all foreign travels for appointees except for pre-approved statutory travel and
apart from that, a 50 per cent cut has been put on fuel coupon allocations for all political appointees and heads of government institutions, effective April 1, 2022. –peacefmonline.com
