No budget overruns this election year – Dep Finance Minister assures

Government is committed to ensure that there are no budget overruns this election year, Cassiel Ato Forson, Deputy Minister of Finance has said.

He said government is determined to sustain fiscal discipline while investing prudently in infrastructure and social development.

Mr Forson was speaking at the stakeholders’ consultation workshop on the 2017 budget in Accra.

The workshop was to solicit inputs from stakeholders in the planning, formulating, implementing, monitoring and evaluation of the national budget.

He said governance is a joint responsibility and therefore, it is only through such and constructive engagements processes that the government could move the country forward.

He said to advance budget transparency, Ghana has signed on to the open budget initiative to promote transparency and accountability in budget management, towards ensuring citizens participation.

He said for better budget transparency and accountability, the stakeholder consultation process has become one of the relevant approaches to improving good governance and proper accountability to the citizenry.

The Minister said in line with the provisions in the 1992 Constitution, 2016 being an election year, the full budget would not be presented to Parliament in November.

“This is to allow, whoever, emerges as the winner of the 2016 elections and also the incoming Parliament to approve the budget they would be overseeing,” he added.

He said as a result, government would seek Parliamentary approval for expenditure in advance of appropriation for the first quarter of 2017 only to be able to run government machinery.

Various civil society organisations presented their inputs to be added on to the 2017 budget.