Ken Ofori Atta to present budget on govt's expenditure for first three months in 2021

Minister of Finance Ken Ofori Atta will present a budget to parliament on government's expenditure for the first three months of 2021 on Wednesday, October 28.

The expected presentation known as 'Expenditure In Advance of Appropriation' is to prevent transitional challenges in the smooth running of the country in the first three months after elections.

This was made known on the floor of the House by the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu.

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has also called on rich countries to consider extending the moratorium on debt servicing from poorer countries.

Mr. Ofori-Atta made this call as he ended his tenure as chairman of the joint ministerial committee of the boards of governors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The Finance Minister urged the G-20 countries to not only extend their Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) by two years but also re-examine the scheme.

To help developing countries deal with the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the G20 launched the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), which freezes low-income countries’ external debt service payments to official bilateral creditors until the end of 2020.

Stressing the importance of the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative in giving fiscal space to economies, the Minister said: “since its endorsement, many of the poorest countries have worked closely with official bilateral creditors. The moratorium has been a critical liquidity intervention to save much-needed resources to tackle the crisis before us.”

“The crisis is threatening to reverse years of development gains and throw hundreds of millions of people back into poverty,” the Minister asserted.

The Minister explained that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to a tipping point where critical action must be taken to avert imminent disaster.