Chief Executive officer of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Seth Twum Akwaboah, says his outfit will be keenly monitoring the Mid-Year Budget Review.
According to him, due to the country recently being subscribed to an IMF programme, the budget review, unlike in previous years, will have significant changes.
He said the AGI will submit its input to government by next week, “and we expect that they’ll invite us and have further discussions on them normally through the budget seminar and then we make our input. And we expect that some of the issues we’ll be tabling will be taken on board.”
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express Business Edition, he said the AGI will be keenly monitoring government revenue and expenditure measures.
“The revenue handles, we’re very keen on seeing what’s going to be the sources of revenue because normally government source is largely taxes, so what’s going to be the revenue handles? What are the taxes that are – maybe some are going to be withdrawn, some are going to increased whatever or reduced, we’re interested in that because they all have different implications for the economy and industry in particular. So we’re very keen on monitoring that.
“When it comes to the expenditure, what is going to be the expenditure handles as well? Which area is government going to spend more? If government is going to spend more on the productive sector we’ll be happy with it. We know that some of the infrastructure projects for example have virtually come to a halt because of the challenges with revenue and all that. So those ones that is linked directly to your production we have to get it fixed. So we’ll be interested in knowing which of them is coming to the budget expenditure,” he said.
He added that to boost production and export, he is hopeful that government provides adequate support to industry.
“And then when it comes to support for industry, there are several areas where we expect more funds to be pushed in. Export for example is key at this time, we have the one district one factory, government is talking of industrialization everybody is acknowledging that and we speak for industries therefore we have to come hard at that.
“It is important that we strengthen this area and support our export sector. Today we’ve just started establishing export trade houses, need resources to be able to do that. So we are very keen on monitoring the budget and I think that if we get it right it will help gradually improve the situation,” he said.
Source: Ghana News
