Sanitizing spending is a major way to address economic difficulties – UGBS Prof tells gov’t

Sanitizing government’s expenditure is one major way of addressing the current economic challenges facing Ghana, a Professor at the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), Elikplim Agbewor, has said.

Prof Agbewor made this comment while speaking on the First Take show with Dzifa Bampoh on 3FM Tuesday March 22 in relation to the new measures, including an upward adjustment of the policy rate to 17%, introduced by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to deal with the economic challenges.

He said “I think that sanitizing the expenditure sector is one way to address the economic difficulties.”

He further said “I think that we can be optimistic. Hopefully, some of these issues are not domestics issues, some of the issues are global. For example, the war in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine has really been a factor affecting most economies in the world because of the increases in inflation, increases in commodity prices.”

Regarding the call to tackle the expenditure, the Director of Research at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Dr John Kwakye had earlier asked the President to reduce the number of Ministries and Ministers serving in his government in order to ease the burden on the national purse.

In a statement issued on Friday March 18, he said “Take urgent steps to reduce expenditure whose level and composition remain problematic.

“The measures should include the following ; restructure ministries and reduce the number from 30 to 20 reduce the number of ministers from 80 to 56 (Including 16 regional ministers).”

A Former Executive Director of the Danquah Institute Gabby Otchere Darko reacting to this call noted that the Presidency has already reduced its spending by more than 20%

Gabby said in a tweet that “I am reading good suggestions on how to deal with the fiscal difficulties, like cutting down on govt expenditure. But, already spending is down by more than 20% and MDAs are feeling the pinch. The Presidency alone has cut expenditure down by over 30%.

Govt must up its PR game!”