The Former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors, and astute farmer, Senyo Hosi has called the government’s 2023 Budget Statement a mere exaggeration lacking factual substance as it failed to provide solutions to the economic hardship.
He said that despite the Finance Minister’s elegant budget reading, substance gave out less confidence, the budget was expected to have provided physical consolidation to solve the physical challenges the economy is facing.
According to him, he found it astounding that the government had passed up the chance to suggest any policy changes that would have transformed any sector of the economy, especially the agriculture industry, which is the greatest employer in the nation.
Focusing specifically on the government’s policy proposal for the rice production industry in the 2023 budget, he pointed out that the government had just signaled its intention to restructure the industry, but the budget proposal does not reflect the situation as it is in practice.
“Rice has been mentioned a couple of times, I do not see a policy preposition that really seeks to transform a single agric sector. I see an intent expressed … I want to turn rice around, poultry, maize, but that is grammar, what is the exact policy preposition you intend to roll out?” he quizzed.
“What policy recommendations do the budget propose to implement?” I don’t believe when they say the development of rice would require a hundred thousand hectares of land. We need to build more than 450,000 hectares if we actually want to stop rice importation.
He pointed out that businesses would face considerably greater difficulties as a result of the government’s plan to increase our budget deficit.
What are we witnessing? He quizzed. “We are considering a strategy to widen the fiscal imbalance that doesn’t give us a good signal because, as firms, we’ll be more squeezed out of the funding market”, he added.
“I think the Finance Minister uttered neatly written stuff, but substance truly gives us less confidence,” he remarked on JoyNews’ PM Express. If you examine our current issue, it is mostly a fiscal one, thus we anticipate seeing much more fiscal consolidation.
