INTRODUCTION
On Thursday, 15th of November, 2018, Ghana’s Minister of Finance, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta presented the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of Government for the 2019 Financial Year to Parliament. The theme for the budget, “…a stronger economy for jobs and prosperity”, underscores government’s overall objective of creating jobs and shared prosperity through a robust economy.
This is to be anchored on six strategic pillars namely: agricultural modernization; industrialization; entrepreneurship; infrastructure; improving efficiency in revenue mobilization and protecting the public purse; and social intervention. More specifically, the government aims at, “…making an unprecedented push in […expanding infrastructure…]; modernising agriculture, increasing production, and reducing Ghana’s dependence on imports for food; forging ahead with a bold and comprehensive industrialisation plan that adds value to our agriculture and natural resources, and leverages our rising population of educated youth; strengthening our domestic revenue mobilisation and taking strong measures to enforce efficiency in public expenditures and protect the public purse; and building on and strengthening our social interventions in order to ensure that no one is left behind as we transform our economy and march boldly to a Ghana Beyond Aid…”.1
As a result, a review of the budget and the government’s economic management policy for the foregoing year has to be contextualized within the objectives and focal areas so established by the government. Indeed, this ought to be done giving cognizance to the consistency in the prescription of policy, value for money considerations, as well as the incidence of burden or otherwise that the policy will place on the ordinary Ghanaian. To this end, the five broad sectors will be our focus: economy, energy, social services sector, governance, and infrastructure. Analysis of the performance and selected initiatives pertaining to the six pillars would be subsumed under these broad sectors and robust recommendations would be provided, moving forward.
