Mr Raymond Tandoh, one of the finest chartered accountants in Kumasi says the 2020 budget delivered by the Finance Minister was overly ambitious.
Speaking to the Ghanaian Observer newspaper last Friday, Mr Tandoh said the revenue projections will be unattainable like how it happened in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
According to the respected accountant and former regional secretary of the NDC, revenue had always fallen short with the recent being the 2019 revenue projection which fell short by a whopping 5 billion from the 58 billion which was the actual projected value.
Mr Tandoh wondered how the economy can do the projected revenue target of 67 billion in 2020 as announced by the Finance Minister when same economy could not do 58 billion in 2019.
“My brother it is always good to have an open mind when undertaking any task but for the Finance Minister to project to collect revenue in the tune of 67 billion when he could not even achieve a projected 58 billion in 2019 is only trying to do the impossible”, Mr Tandoh posited.
DETAILS:
Giving more details, Mr Tandoh said government would expend far in excess of the projected expenditure of 85.9 billion as contained in the budget.
This, he said was because of the projects and capital investments it wants to undertake in 2020 which also happens to be an election year.
With wages and salaries taking a whopping 22 billion whiles interest on payments take another 21.7 billion from the budget, Mr Tandoh wondered how the projected 9.3 billion of capital investments could help the economy to be on a sound footing.
Mr Tandoh said with statutory payments forming 15. 6 billion while goods and services take about 8.3 billion from same budgeted expenditure, there will be little hope for a transformed economy as claimed by the Finance Minister.
“From the projected expenditure figures if I say there is hope for a transformed economy I will be lying because our expenditure of 68.5 billion only has 9.3 billion slated for capital projects which is woefully inadequate for us to think of a transformation”, the accountant noted.
ELECTION BLUES:
Mr Tandoh indicated that election years throw most budgets out of balance and noted that 2020 will not be an exception.
He said with uncertainty surrounding such periods most multinational companies will find ways of ferrying their profits and capital out of the country.
This capital flight, the accountant believed would make things difficult for the economy as inflation would soar high.
PROPOSAL:
Mr Tandoh advised government to work to streamline its spending from now so as to limit the shocks that are bound to happen next year.
He also proposed for a tax relief and incentives for local manufacturing companies so that they can compete with foreign companies who may be in the same sector.
“We can only develop when we decide to empower our people and this can start with us giving our local manufacturing companies tax relief and incentives to make them competitive as well as produce at a large scale to capture the markets they operate “, Mr Tandoh stressed.
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