Ken Ofori-Atta to present mid-year review budget statement and economic policy today

Considering the high cost of living including food and transportation in the country, it’s the expectation of the Members of Parliament that the Minister of Finance will use the opportunity to announce some relief measures the Government is putting in place to cushion Ghanaians.

The budget review is expected to centre on the move to go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and address the myriad of challenges facing the Nation Builders Corps (NABCo) programme.

Earlier, a Deputy Minister for Finance debunked claims that the Free Senior High School policy will be affected by the conditions to be spelled out by the IMF following the government's decision to seek a bailout.

According to Abena Osei-Asare, the government's flagship programmes like the free SHS, and Agenda 111 among others, will not be scrapped.

"We want to assure people that we have been here [at the IMF] before and irrespective of that we still ensured development… and this time will be no different.

"From 2017 to 2019, we still implemented the school feeding under an IMF programme and we even expanded it. In 2017 when we came it was around 1.3 million children [benefiting from school feeding], but in 2019 we had moved to almost two million children under the IMF programme. In September 2017 under an IMF programme, we did implement Free Senior High School programme," she said on Accra-based Asaase radio.