By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Ghana’s Parliament has passed into law a provisional budget permitting the government to spend 68.1 billion Ghanaian cedis (£4.65 billion) until the first quarter of the year, narrowly averting a government shutdown.
The Speaker of the country’s Parliament, Alban Bagbin, who announced this on Friday, said lawmakers approved the provisional budget in a sitting that lasted until Thursday night.
In every election year, a provisional budget is usually passed in November to cover the gap until the president-elect assumes office.
This time, the presentation of the provisional budget had been delayed due to an impasse over which party holds a majority in the House—between the outgoing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the incoming National Democratic Congress (NDC).
John Dramani Mahama of the NDC is set to take office as the West African country’s President next week following his victory in the 7 December poll, handing him a second term in office after serving as leader of the gold-rich country from 2012 to 2016.
Outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo is expected to deliver his last state of the nation address later on Friday after eight years in office.
The late passage of the provisional budget will not affect government business, Reuters quoted Finance Minister Mohammed Amin Adam as saying in his address to the joint session of the business and finance committees of the House.
Sectoral allocation of the approved amount indicates that almost a third is earmarked for payments to energy sector service providers.
Mahama, who is returning to power amid an economic resurgence from the country’s worst crisis in a generation, said last month that Ghana was facing a critical situation in the energy sector.
The President-elect emphasised that preliminary estimates showed that arrears in the energy sector exceeded £2.5 billion at a time when electricity supply was erratic.
