UCC School of Economics dissects 2019 budget

Dr James Attah Preprah of the School of Economics at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), has observed that the 2019 budget lacks what it takes to bridge the gap between the poor and the rich in society. He is therefore calling for fair distribution of national income to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. Dr James Attah Preprah was speaking at a roundtable discussion organized by the Data Sciences and Economic Policy of UCC’s School of Economics to interrogate the 2019 budget. “Future budget should focus on how we can bridge that income inequality gap. I think what we need to tell our budget infrastructures is that, how can we ensure that, the inequality gap is bridged, the income that has been created, how do we distribute it, bringing the poor closer to the rich,” he added. Dr James Preprah however acknowledges that the budget focused on the business environment, financial, among other sectors in an attempt to reduce poverty in Ghana. Other academics from the school also reviewed the budget along education, financial among other sectors of the economy. Speaking on fiscal policy Dr. William Brafu Insaidoo indicated that instituting a fiscal council to promote sustainable public finance will promote fiscal discipline but cautioned government to make it completely independent from politics. “Let’s us fund the budget through underlying growth of the economy, for budget to be effective, you need to identify internal consistencies and where they don’t exist, you will run into problems, this is what happens to government possibly because they are served by the same technocrats without the benefit of innovative ways of doing policy analysis.” Dr Brafu Insaidoo further suggested that Ghana has taxing potentials which are not yet exhausted and therefore draws the attention of government to reduce informality through intensive registration of the informal sector players. In the area of education, Mr. Jacob Nunu was unhappy about the fact that just 4 percent of allocation for education is for capital investment while 24% goes to goods and services and 36% for Free SHS. “The interesting thing has to do with the capital investment we make out of education, and we find out that, now we find out that only 4% goes into the capital investment to build schools, chairs, tables among others out of about 12 billion allocated to the education sector, this gives us an idea of the challenges we have in that sector,” he indicated. By Spencer Kwabena Boateng Mensah|3News|Ghana]]>