Economist, Professor Godfred Bokpin has told Citi Business News that Ghana faces a threat of overspending its budget this year.
According to him, factors leading to overspending in election years are still persisting which will make it difficult for the government to stay within its budget.
Most analysts have expressed caution at government overspending during election years.
The IMF has also warned government to be cautious not to yield to pressures that will result in increasing the country’s debts.
Speaking to Citi Business News Professor Bokpin cautioned against loose fiscal policies during election years that he cited as accounting for overspending by governments.
“There is a real threat that we can go beyond our budget, we can spend in excess of the planned projected expenditure.
More so because Ghana has got a history, election year excesses are things that persist in almost all our elections so that is where the fear is.
But what is more exciting also is the fact that we are going through an IMF program that covers this year’s election but the IMF is not here to do all the monitoring for us and the election has not started, the last four months for this year is critical.” Professor Bokpin said.
He added, “If you realize, in the year 2012, up until July-August, the figures were quite okay but the last four months of 2012 were quite detrimental to the growth and the preservation of the economic fundamentals.
This is where the issues are and I want to believe that that is why everybody is concerned of financial slippages.”
Meanwhile some analysts have implored the newly appointed Bank of Ghana governor to be firm in stemming a possible overspending by government.
Source: citifmonline