Government must prioritise critical areas of the economy in order to ensure sustainability as it prepares towards the 2024 annual budget, Mr Kwasi Asante, a Social Policy Specialist with the United Nations Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has said.
According to him, even though budgetary allocation to critical areas such as education, healthcare and agriculture had witnessed some increases in nominal terms over the period, the value of increase had been devalued due to inflationary pressures, stressing that “it is important that the budget for this year addresses that challenge.”
Mr Asante made the call at a forum to collate inputs from citizens for the 2024 national budget and economic policy of the government.
The forum organised by SEND Ghana in collaboration with Hope for Future Generations forms part of a number of activities laid out to offer the citizenry the opportunity to contribute towards the government’s economic policy.
This year’s forum focused on critical areas such as education, health, agriculture and gender and social protection.
Mr Asante said although government was doing well, there was the need to do more for the health and education sectors, adding that “I think for the health sector the government is doing quite well but I think there’s more room for improvement.
He said it was important that the government considered a more sustainable financing architecture for the health sector with special emphasis on vaccine procurement.
“We know that Ghana being a lower-middle income country is transitioning the GAVI financing framework and so as a country, we need to have a strategy on how to mobilise resources to sustainably procure vaccines,” he said.
Touching on education, he said there was the need for the government to prioritise basic education by investing in school infrastructure and other things as a means of strengthening the foundations of the youth.
On his part, the Country Director of SEND Ghana, Mr Emmanuel Ayifah, said the forum was important as it offered the opportunity for the views of the citizenry to be captured into next year’s budget is very important.
He explained that even though the country was going through financial and economic difficulties, it the views of the citizenry could not be discounted, stressing that “especially now that we are in financial challenges government cannot do all the things that have to be done.”
Mr Ayifah said he was very optimistic that the views collated when presented to the various sector ministries would find expression in the final budget statement.
The Executive Director for Hope for Future Generations, Mr Cecilia Senoo commended SEND Ghana for organising the forum, adding that “it’s important for citizens to make inputs into the national budget because they are the people who are paying the tax, they are the people who are benefiting and their needs must be prioritised in our national budget,” she argued.
She said in the 2024 Budget Statement and Economic Policy, government must see to it that the taxes paid by Ghanaians work for every citizen’s benefit.
Dr Lodonu-Senoo called on the citizenry to rise up and demand better from government to ensure that the future of the unborn generation was safeguarded.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
