The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin is angry with Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta for cutting budgetary allocation to the security ministries in 2022.
He questioned why allocation for compensation has been increased in the budget to recruit more people while other allocations have been slashed.
According to him, persons employed will not have the resources to work if they are not given what is allocated to them.
“The safety of individuals, community and the nation cannot be toyed with. My checks at the Ministry and the Controller and Accountant General Department clearly indicated to me that security agencies are one of the priority areas of the government. But this is not what is reflected in the performance of 2022,” Mr. Bagbin said this during the approval of over 3 billion cedis for the Ministry for 2023.
Speaker Bagbin cautioned Mr. Ofori-Atta against repeating the same in 2023, condemning 80 percent cut in defense ministry’s budgetary allocation in 2022.
He said it is unacceptable that the Finance Ministry will release less than 20 percent of goods and services allocation to the Defence Ministry.
“The security agencies are one of the priority areas of government but this is not what is reflected in the performance of 2022. It’s sad when I read and saw that approximately 81% of the budget of goods and services has not been released to the Ministry of Defence,” he said.
He was wondering why approximately 81 percent of budget allocation for goods and services to the Ministry of Defense was given out.
“In this current situation how do you expect them to operate?” Speaker Bagbin quizzed.
By Vincent Kubi