2024 budget: Government vows to preserve economic gains and enhance living standards

The government has reassured citizens of its commitment to safeguard the country’s recent economic progress and ensure that it positively impacts the living standards of all in the coming months.

This commitment will be reflected in the 2024 budget, which will include further expenditure reduction measures and policies aimed at consolidating macroeconomic gains while keeping inflation and exchange rates in check.

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta and Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah conveyed these assurances on the sidelines of the 2023 International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank Group (WBG) Annual Meetings in Marrakech.

Ken Ofori-Atta stated, “You’ll see more prudent fiscal measures in the 2024 budget to keep the macroeconomy stable so that inflation continues to go down and the currency remains stable. That’s an assurance from the government that will surely happen.”

“We’ll also find various incentives and resources into the growth agenda that we have to catalyse the private sector to thrive,” the Minister pledged during a press briefing”, he added.

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah added that the government would introduce various incentives and allocate resources to stimulate the growth agenda and catalyze private sector development.

“Although we don’t have the final figures, one of the clearest ways to examine the performance of the measures to reduce expenditure is to look at the primary balance, and there’s a clear indication that we’re doing well to stay within the revenue envelope that we have,” he said.

In the 2023 budget, the government implemented several cost-cutting measures, such as freezing public sector employment and reducing the salaries of some government officials to support macroeconomic stability. These measures have begun to yield positive results, with a focus on maintaining fiscal discipline, as expressed by Nkrumah.

The government’s primary balance, which indicates the difference between revenue collected and expenditure on public goods and services, excluding debt payments, was -1.3 in the first half of 2022. By the same period in 2023, it had improved to 0.6.

While civil society groups, economists, and governance experts have called for measures like reducing the number of ministers and officials and increasing property taxes, the government is yet to implement these suggestions.

However, the government remains confident in its ability to enhance domestic revenue collection to support expenditure reduction measures and strengthen the economy.