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Haruna Iddrisu, the minority leader, is concerned about the government’s decision to freeze public sector employment in 2023.

He is concerned that this will exacerbate the country’s high youth unemployment rate.

Mr Iddrisu, who expressed his displeasure with the decision at a post-budget workshop in Ho, Volta Region, urged the government to consider the impact on the country’s youth.

“Mr. Speaker, Ghana’s economy and as I listened to the Honourable Minister of Finance, the 2023 budget statement is replete with evidence that the government is simply ‘broke’ and the economy in crisis,” he said.

The worry stems from the passage of the 2023 budget, dubbed the “Nkabom budget.”

During the budget reading, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta announced a number of policies aimed at “expenditure rationalisation,” including a hiring freeze in the public and civil service beginning in January 2023.

In response to the budget’s content, the Minority Leader, who also serves as the Tamale South MP, stated that the budget was an indication of the country’s dire situation.

He emphasized that it is “an economy on life support that requires some resuscitation.”

He contended that some of the government’s proposed interventions, such as limiting the number of nursing and teacher trainees enrolled and reducing the size of convoys, would worsen the economy.

The Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, on the other hand, explained that shocks and the cedi’s depreciation have been major contributors to the current economic difficulties, which the 2023 Budget seeks to address.

“These (COVID-19 and Russian-Ukraine war) have created internal and external imbalances in the clearly economic woes; high inflation and unsustainable financing of the current economic deficit and rapid depreciation of the cedi. Suddenly, these variables have brought a lot of hardships to the citizenry, particularly the poor and vulnerable,” he noted.

He added that the budget intends to alleviate the plight of Ghanaians through increased spending on social protection.

Source: Ted News Ghana

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