Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu, has proposed ten spending reductions, including a postponement of the National Cathedral’s construction in the face of an IMF bailout and labor unrest.
A ban on all presidential chartered jet travel, an immediate assessment of Ghana’s end-of-service perks system, and the elimination of all ex-gratia payments for political and non-political beneficiaries are all included in the cuts proposed by the opposition MP.
The CEO of the ridiculous non-existent Keta Port should be fired, and the outrageous 337 political appointees at the Office of the President should be cut by more than half, according to the president’s request to “dramatically reduce the number of Ministers, abolish Deputy CEO positions, and terminate the CEO for the ridiculous non-existent Keta Port.”
My selection of urgent expenditure cuts and concrete actions required in the face of an IMF bailout and crippling labour agitations:
1) Suspend the unconstitutional public funding of the US$400million National Cathedral project which the government has so far diverted over GHS200million without parliamentary approval;
2) Renegotiate with owners of demolished properties at the National Cathedral location for a deferred compensation and save an estimated US$100million;
3) Ban all oligarchic presidential chartered jet travels which have cost suffering taxpayers in excess of GHS34million over the last 13 months;
4) Announce an immediate review of Ghana’s end of service benefits regime and scrap all ex-gratia payments for political and non-political beneficiaries;
5) Drastically reduce the number of Ministers, abolish Deputy CEO positions, dismiss the CEO for the ridiculous non-existent Keta Port and slash the outrageous 337 political appointees at the Office of the President by more than half;
6) Cancel vanity projects such as the proposed new €116million new Accra International Conference Centre project, 5 STEM universities, Boankra Green Technology City, Marine Drive Project, Stadia for Abuakwa and Sunyani, Agenda 111, new embassies in Trinidad and Tobago and Mexico;
7) Reallocate funds from government’s lavish GHS993million contingency vote (up by 431.5% from 186million in 2021) to other critical sectors such as meeting COLA demands of suffering Ghanaian workers;
8)Parliament should also shelve plans to construct new constituency offices for MPs;
9) Stop all ongoing opaque and crony procurement processes, particularly in the Communications and Digitalisation space where a Nigerian-led cabal have literally hijacked virtually every government contract (Further exposition on this to follow shortly);
10) The Executive, Legislature and Civil Society Organisations should jointly commission a special “Operation Retrieve and Recover” to take back billions of taxpayer funds in the wrong hands as revealed in various Auditor-General Reports over the last 10 years
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