The Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper has disappointed all those who were looking forward to hearing a budget reading on the floor of parliament today, October 20, 2016.

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To the media’s disappointment, the budget was instead laid before the Finance Committee for consideration after which the entire house will debate the issue.

Budget readings are heavily covered in the media with lots of analysis and scrutiny devoted to how the government intends to spend the countries resources.

At the time of publication, the committee was in a meeting to discuss the budget presentation.

Background

The Deputy majority leader Alfred Agbesi had earlier announced:

“The Minister of Finance is expected to present to the house on Thursday 20th October, 2016, the expenditure in advance of appropriation in January to March 2017 as well as the revenue and expenditure of the government of Ghana for the 2017 financial year.”

The move to present the budget for the first quarter of 2017 is in line with conventions established during election years due to the likelihood of a change of government.

In July, Terkper asked for an additional budget of GHC1.8 billion for various intervention programmes for the rest of 2016.