ghananlpcommunity/ghana-gov-speeches-sentences huggingface dataset:
Speaker, these expenditure measures are in line with the theme for the 2014 Budget which emphasizes the realignment with respect to compensation, interest payment, other recurrent expenditure and capital or development expenditure.
We wish to reiterate that the realignment remains the theme for addressing our current fiscal challenges.
The government is confident that the fiscal measures outlined above will lead to the achievement of the fiscal deficit target for 2014.
Speaker, in 2014, the key monetary policy concern is re-anchoring inflation expectations and exchange rate stability.
The Bank of Ghana (BOG) has taken the following measures to re-anchor inflation expectations and prevent the second round impact of the deregulation of petroleum and utility prices from getting entrenched in the economy: a 2 percent rate increase by the MPC from16 percent to 18 percent; and issuance of a set of foreign exchange regulations and code of conduct to guide operations in the foreign exchange market.
The BOG measures are designed to ensure transparency, streamline activity and reduce leakages in the foreign exchange markets, address anti-money laundering issues and promote the use of the Cedi as the legal tender.
Speaker, permit me to restate that Ghana remains a favourable investment destination and these measures seek to regulate business affairs efficiently.
It was never the intention of Government to revert to a control regime.
MEDIUM-TERM FISCAL MEASURES The main goal of the medium term macroeconomic programme is to achieve and sustain macroeconomic stability for the promotion of growth and development.
In this regard, fiscal policy will aim at consolidation to achieve sustainable fiscal deficit and public debt.
The reduction in fiscal deficit will be driven mainly by expenditure rationalization and revenue enhancing measures.
The strategy for achieving macroeconomic stability includes: ensuring fiscal discipline that hinges on prudent public expenditure management; enhanced domestic revenue mobilization – mainly through the ongoing GRA reforms that include the revision of all our direct and indirect tax laws; public sector reforms, with particular emphasis on right-sizing the public service; reclassification of, and improvement in, public debt management; and encouraging the private sector to participate in the accelerated growth agenda through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) including improvements in downstream energy and power distribution projects.
Speaker, expenditure rationalization measures will include: shifting the focus of expenditure from low priority public spending for all MDAs; rationalization of the wage bill, pensions, gratuities, and social security payments as part of measures to reduce the wage bill to tax revenue ratio to ECOWAS threshold.
This will be done in the context of GIFMIS, HRMS and payroll reforms that are being implemented already; restructuring of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) and other Statutory Funds to reduce rigidities in the budget and aligning them to priority programmes; rationalization of public sector staff in MDAs – which elements include the ongoing payroll upgrade and installation of new HRMS programme for Office of Head of Civil Service (OHCS) and Public Services Commission (PSC).
The enhancement of these measures will include a broad public sector reform such as an option for voluntary retirement plan as well as a review of MDAs organizational structure; negotiate public sector wage adjustments subject to budgetary constraints and within a medium term framework aimed at reducing the wage bill-to-tax revenue ratio progressively; continuation of the policy of regular adjustment of fuel and utility prices to keep expenditure on subsidy within budget constraints; deepen the implementation of GIFMIS through completion of the budget modules and roll-out to all MDAs and MMDAs to improve efficiency in public expenditure management and provide a more effective way of controlling commitment; undertaking a more thorough privatization of the downstream of the electricity distribution systems at ECG and NEDCO, by using private sector in the collection of revenues, under performance-based contracts; and Debt management measures such as: managing the debt sustainability limits; refinancing and extending the tenure of loans and bonds for financing the capital budget; adopting recovery schemes such as escrows and on-lending for commercially viable projects; financing of capital budget from specific long-term domestic and foreign loans and bonds and not relying on short-term instruments.
The afore mentioned goal will complement the lengthening of the maturity profile of domestic debt and financing the capital component of the budget through the issuance of longer dated bonds; and channel grants and concessional borrowing with heavy grant elements to social investments while using the proposed GIF to leverage funding from the financial markets and working with the private sector to boost infrastructure through the issuance of guarantees, and on-lending to self-financing SOEs.
Speaker, the Government will pursue enhanced revenue mobilization mainly through tax reforms and improved revenue administration and efficiency.
We aim to increase revenues in relation to GDP over the medium-term to levels consistent with peers in the Lower Middle Income Country category.
In addition, the GRA’s medium-to-long term strategic plan is being revised at the moment to include a goal of placing the nation’s revenue mobilization effort within the bands for lower Middle Income countries.
Speaker, the review of our debt strategy as discussed above is particularly important.
It is in this context that the House approved two critical measures as part of the 2014 Budget: Sovereign Bond issue: we have obtained approval from Public Procurement Authority (PPA) to appoint the advisors and we will be embarking on a non-deal road show this month.
Speaker, emerging and peripheral markets remain volatile, but keeping an eye on these developments is also not tantamount to withdrawal from the bond issues as has been widely reported in recent days.
Ghana Infrastructure Fund (GIF): Mr.
Speaker, the House also debated its resolution on the establishment of the GIF in the 2014 Budget covered.
Speaker, I am happy to inform the House that the Advisory Committee has summited its report which includes a proposed bill, which Cabinet has approved for the consideration of this August House.
We shall consult with leadership on the next steps.
As we noted in the 2014 Budget, the GIF is key for the success of our loan recovery effort from commercial projects; the mobilization of domestic and international resources for investment; partnership with the private sector through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), Joint Ventures (JVs), and other Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) structures; and reclassification of our public debt with emphasis on contingent liability for public debt element that can be recovered through on lending and escrow mechanisms.
In the medium term, the objective of monetary policy will remain price stability.
In this regard, monetary policy will aim at delivering an inflation target of 9.5 percent within a band of ±2 percent and gross international reserves which will cover not less than 4 months of imports of goods and services by 2016.
It is expected that improved non-traditional exports and oil production as well as possible decline in the oil import bill with the onset of gas production should create conditions for gradual recovery of output and foreign exchange reserves.
Moreover the expected ramped-up Jubilee crude oil production in 2014 and 2015, the coming on stream of the Twenenboa-Enyenra-Ntomme (TEN), as well as the Sankofa-Gye Nyame fields in the second half of 2016 should boost the medium-term prospects of increasing output and shoring up the foreign exchange reserves.
CONCLUSION Mr.
Speaker, the economy is beginning to adjust to the fiscal and monetary measures with net positive change in nominal budget numbers as well as a reduced pace of depreciation of the cedi, although risks relating to continuing commodity price volatility and tightening global financial conditions still remain.
Speaker, given that these consolidation measures are promulgated within a multi-year framework, as is the experience of all countries undergoing major adjustment, their full effect will materialize over more than a single year.
It is important to emphasize some of the measures that are currently being implemented are structural and they will take time to fully materialise.
Speaker we wish to re-iterate the comprehensiveness of our home-grown fiscal consolidation measures.
It is in this regard that we believe that these measures are credible enough to meet the short-to-medium term objectives.
Speaker, we will keep in view the need to safeguard the positive medium term prospects.
Speaker, we shall continue to assess the full impact of the measures and possible positive turns in the global and domestic economy which could be positive.
As required by law and following tradition, we shall appear before the House with the mid-year review and if necessary a Supplementary Budget.
Hon Members, I would like, first and foremost, to express my gratitude, once again, to all of you for your support in electing me as Speaker of the 8 th Parliament of the Republic of Ghana, in accordance with Article 95, clauses (1) and (3) of the Constitution and Orders 8 and 9 of the Standing Orders of the Parliament of Ghana.
As I pledged to you and the Nation on the occasion of my election as Speaker, I am fully committed to serving this House and this Country faithfully and conscientiously as the Speaker for Members of Parliament and indeed all Ghanaians.
SPECIAL WELCOME TO FIRST-TIME MEMBERS Let me also take this opportunity to congratulate each and every one of you, once again, on being elected or re-elected as a Member of the eight Parliament of the Fourth Republic.
I am particularly delighted to welcome the one hundred and twenty-seven fresh hands, who are assuming your seats as Members of this House for the first time.
You have now earned the privilege to be addressed in this Chamber as “Honorable”.
And honorable you must be.
Whatever may have been your inspiration for choosing to embark on this path, I would like you to know that the position you now occupy as a Member of Parliament is a position of leadership, of honor, of privilege, of trust, and, above all, of service.
Your constituents have reposed in you, as in the rest of your colleagues, an enormous amount of confidence and trust in electing you to represent them and their interests in this House of the People of Ghana.
You have a reciprocal responsibility and obligation to serve them and the Nation with honor, and integrity.
Remember at all times, that you lead your people best by serving them with respect, with humility, and with diligence.
My office, together with the Office of the Clerk of Parliament and the Parliamentary Service as a whole, stands ready to assist you with a range of services and resources, including training, necessary to make your transition into your new role as smooth as possible.
I am also confident that you will find among your returning colleagues many who are able and willing to help you navigate and learn the ropes here as quickly as you can, so that you can contribute effectively to the business of this House and make an impact within the shortest possible time.
Ultimately, responsibility for having a successful career in this House rests with you.
Remember that, this House is a house of rules and procedures.
Thus, knowledge and, with time, mastery, of the rules and procedures that govern the business and proceedings of this House will be indispensable to your success as a Member, as well as make my job as Speaker, all the more effective.
May your career in this House be as long and as productive as mine has been.
MEMBERS WHO BECOME MINISTERS Honourable Members, by the dictates of the Constitution of the Fourth Republic, some of you will, in due course, be nominated and, with the approval of this House, appointed by the President to positions in his Administration as Ministers and Deputy Ministers of State.
During my 28-year career as a Member of Parliament, I had the opportunity to serve as a Minister of State in different capacities.
This so-called “hybrid” feature of our Constitutional system means, in effect, that a certain number of you will, at any given time, be under a duty to serve three Masters: Constituency, Parliament and the President.
Hon Members, you are well aware, of the Biblical injunction to not serve two masters, lest you become “devoted to one and despise the other.”
(Matthew 6:24).
In your situation, it is even worse.
You are enjoined to serve three masters.
Needless to say, our experience has shown that, in the case of Members who double as Ministers, the master that is often sacrificed and left holding the shorter end of the stick is Parliament.
Members who are appointed to Ministerial office generally prioritize their Executive Branch roles over their Parliamentary roles.
Scholars and students of governance have observed and noted the myriad ways in which this arrangement has served to unbalance the relationship between the Executive and Parliament and affected adversely the ability of Parliament and of MPs to carry out faithfully their representative, oversight, deliberative, and legislative roles.
Until we reform this constitutional arrangement to improve the country’s governance, however, I believe all parties or players implicated in this arrangement, namely the President, Parliament itself, and those Members appointed as Ministers, have each a responsibility to take steps to minimize the negative impact of this arrangement on the business, mandate, and performance of the House.
As a former Member of this House, with a parliamentary career as long and as old as this 4 th Republic, one thing I do know for sure is that drawing a large number of Ministers and Deputy Ministers of State from the Membership of Parliament is unhelpful to the business of Parliament and also weakens Parliament’s ability to perform its proper role in the promotion of good governance.
Be that as it may, Members appointed to serve as Ministers or Deputy Ministers must understand that, you are Members of Parliament, first and foremost.
In fact, in most or nearly all cases, you will have earned your appointment as Minister of State on account of your position or standing as a Member of Parliament.
It behooves such Members, therefore, to continue to take your Parliamentary roles and responsibilities seriously.
Indeed, the anecdotal evidence suggests that, among Members who double as Ministers, those who strive to balance their responsibilities to both Branches of Government, as difficult as that may be, tend to have more successful and longer careers on both sides.
WHAT THE PEOPLE OF GHANA EXPECT OF THE 8 th PARLIAMENT Hon Members, in the General Elections of December 7, 2020, out of which this 8 th Parliament has emerged, the People of Ghana sent a loud and clear message to the political class when they voted to deny both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) single-party control of the Legislative Branch.
The score of 137 for NPP and 137 for NDC, with one Independent, the decision of no Majority Party and no Minority Party, in Parliament, is a call for us to chart a new path, to embark on new ways of transacting Parliamentary business, which you know or ought to know, is the business of the people.
I urge the leadership of both sides of the House to put their heads together to smoothen out any bottlenecks or challenges that may impede the conduct of business in the House.
The message which these results convey, I believe, may be summed up in the common expression “enough is enough”.
Or to put it differently, “No more business as usual.”
I believe that the People of Ghana, in voting as they did in the last elections, have signaled their frustration with and disapproval of the “Party First” mindset and the associated unbridled partisanship and partisan polarization that have taken root in our politics and are giving our option of multi-party democracy a bad name.
I would like to believe also that the first indication that this message may have begun to sink is the very fact of my election as Speaker of Parliament, despite not being the nominee or preference of those Members whose party’s flagbearer has been declared by the Chair of the Electoral Commission as President-elect.
I am sincerely grateful for the bipartisan approval of my speakership of this Parliament by you.
God richly bless you all.
Hon Members, the People of Ghana would like us to prioritize the needs and concerns of the Country and of all Ghanaians above our own private or parochial interest or the narrow interest of one or the other political party.
The People of Ghana are growing tired of politics as usual; of seeing their elected and appointed officials treat their political parties and political party identities as if those were bigger and more important than our common citizenship and as if those artificial identities were ends in themselves, as opposed to a means to the ultimate end, namely the collective progress and development of the country.
The People of Ghana are demanding sound and effective solutions to their everyday problems, needs, frustrations, anxieties, and fears.
The youth in particular wants to be inspired, motivated and given hope for a better future of unlimited opportunities.
They want this country to grow and to prosper; to realize and live up to its full potential; to use its bountiful resources to deliver opportunity and generate prosperity and hope for its peoples.
And they are entitled to no less.
In case we are at a loss as to what this means for the substance of the work we must do here in this House, you and I would do well to refer to the Directive Principles of State Policy, contained in Chapter Six of the Constitution.
The Directive Principles of State Policy stands as a constant reminder to us of what duty Parliament, and Members owe, individually and collectively, to our dear Country and its People.
In swearing fidelity to the Constitution, as we did on the occasion of our respective assumptions of office, what we undertook to do, at a minimum, is to use the public power, the privilege, and the associated opportunities and resources entrusted to us in ways and for purposes that would bring us closer as a Nation to realizing the ambitions, goals, principles, and policies we have set for ourselves in Chapter Six of the Constitution.
I entreat all of you, Hon Members of this august body, to make the Directive Principles of State Policy your primary guide to action in the discharge of the responsibilities and roles of your office.
Together with the provisions of Chapter Five of the Constitution, including, notably, the provisions on economic rights, educational rights, cultural rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, rights of disabled persons, and rights of the sick, contained in Articles 24 through to 30 of the Constitution.
The Directive Principles of State Policy are, in essence, our own domestic version of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) whose realization we have committed ourselves internationally.
Those ambitions, goals, principles and policies are the barometer by which we must measure our service and performance in this House.
In addressing the issue of what the people of Ghana expect of this Parliament, I would be remiss if I did not express my deepest regret, both as a former Member of this Parliament and a citizen of this great Nation, at the rather unruly behavior and commotion that took place on the floor of this House last week, including the presence of armed soldiers on the floor, and the breaches of the sanctity of a vote, that would otherwise attract severe punishment in connection with the election of the Speaker of the 8 th Parliament.
It was, to put it mildly, despicable conduct unbecoming of people of honor.
What makes it worse is the total absence of justification or reasonable excuse.
As Speaker, I would like to believe that the spectacle of that historic day would not be repeated.
Certainly not on my watch.
I take a strong exception to such conduct and behavior and urge Leadership to take a serious view of it and take the necessary measures to restore the lost dignity of the august House.
It is at variance with the message of the 2020 general elections.
THE CORE MANDATE AND MISSION OF PARLIAMENT: NEITHER OBSTRUCTIONIST NOR A RUBBER STAMP Hon Members, the outcome of the recent General Elections implore us to re-dedicate ourselves to the true and core mandate and mission of Parliament.
There appears to be some amount of confusion and misunderstanding as to what the appropriate role of Parliament is in our constitutional system.
Much of this, is as a result of the two-party structure and composition of the House, within the context of our winner-take-all politics.
Because of this, whenever Parliament is dominated by the same party that holds the Presidency and forms the Government, the common perception and expectation is that Parliament will automatically support the Government’s agenda, without regard to its merits.
In short, we have come to assume that Government is entitled to have its way in Parliament.
And because this has been the Ghanaian public’s perception of how Parliament has conducted itself under various Administrations in the Fourth Republic, this current development of a House in which neither Party has a secure or dominating Majority, in other words, no Majority Party and no Minority Party, and of a Speaker who is not beholden to or endorsed by the President, is causing many of our citizens both in and out of Government, including in this House, a great deal of consternation.
To them, if Government is not guaranteed its way in a Parliament, then such a Parliament can only be obstructionist.
Hon Members, this concern is needless, as it is based on an incorrect view of what this Parliament’s role is and indeed what its role has been in the Fourth Republic.
Regardless of which party has the upper hand in the House, it would be wrong to see Parliament’s role as either obstructing or rubberstamping Government’s agenda.
Parliament cannot discharge any one of its core mandates--deliberative, legislative, financial control, oversight, and representational--by being either obstructionist or a rubberstamp.
As the foremost accountability institution in our constitutional system, Parliament’s role is to check-and-balance the Executive, not to obstruct or rubberstamp the Executive’s agenda.
Parliament does its job, as it must, when it questions, investigates, reviews, and scrutinizes the Executive, its bills, its nominations, and its proposed agreements, and then proceeds to approve, to amend, or to reject them, as the case may be.
As one who comes to the Speakership with the longest record of previous service as a Member of this House, I can recount instances of Parliament playing precisely this role and, thereby, helping to improve the quality of our Nation’s governance.
Even in the First Parliament, when the NPP’s boycott of the 1992 Parliamentary Elections left the House with no real Opposition party, bills proposed by the Executive were not accorded routine, rubber-stamp treatment; they were subjected to close review, scrutiny, and modification, where necessary.
A case in point is the bill that later became the law criminalizing “Causing Financial Loss to the State.”
When it was introduced in the First Parliament, the bill as drafted had no “mens rea” requirement; it would have made “causing financial loss to the State” a strict liability offence.
I recall, and the Hansard record will show, that the amendment to add the word “willfully” to the law came from the floor of the House.
With its almost total control of the House, the dominant Party at the time, could have simply rubberstamped the bill; it did not.
I also recall that Parliament has had occasion in the past to decline to approve certain nominations of the President.