The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, who presented the 2018 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the government to Parliament yesterday, announced that the budget is geared towards creating tens of thousands of jobs for the teeming unemployed graduates and school leavers, thereby creating wealth for the people.
The budget, which is christened “Edwuma” (literally meaning Job Budget), has the main theme, “Putting Ghana Back To Work,” but the opposition National Democratic Party (NDC) in parliament, apparently dazed by the pro-poor fiscal statement and its progressiveness, described the budget as “419,” which was intended to deceive Ghanaians.
The minister said GH¢600 million had been budgeted for the establishment of the Nation Builders’ Corps – which will create 100,000 jobs for all unemployed graduates who would be given specialized training for recruitment into special programmes such as ‘Teach Ghana,’ ‘Clean Ghana,’ ‘Heal Ghana,’ ‘Feed Ghana’ and ‘Revenue Ghana.’
Mr Ken Ofori-Atta noted that the 2017 budget was basically to stabilize the economy and create the necessary fiscal environment for economic growth.
According to him, the previous NDC government left a whopping debt of GH¢123.2 billion, which almost grounded the economy; but the NPP government had been able to pay GH¢2.3 billion, paving the way for massive injection of financial resources into the economy to create jobs and bring the needed relief to Ghanaians.
