See The Budget Parliament Approved For Office Of President | Politics

Parliament on Thursday approved GH¢2,074,827,164 budgetary estimates for the office of government machinery for the year ending December 31, 2024.

The amount is a 100 per cent increase from last year’s approval.

The estimates were laid in the House and referred to the Finance Committee for consideration and report in accordance with Articles 179 and 180 of the 1992 Constitution and Orders 88 and 140(4) of the Standing Orders of the House.

Purpose

It is to provide administrative, managerial and technical services at the presidency.

The Office of Government Machinery is made up of the Office of the President and allied offices, including the Office of the Chief of Staff, the Vice-President’s Secretariat, Cabinet Secretariat, Press Secretariat, the Millennium Development Authority, the Public Sector Reforms Secretariat and Policy Coordination and Development Unit.

Also captured under the Office of Government Machinery are the Council of State, the Office of the Chief of State Protocol, the Ghana AIDS Commission and 10 other agencies.

The report presented to Parliament for approval said the approval was necessary because the office existed to institutionalise open, transparent and accountable governance for the attainment of the government’s development agenda of improving the quality of life of Ghanaians.

EC

In a related development, Parliament last Wednesday approved the sum of GH¢786.9 million for the services of the Electoral Commission (EC) for the year ending December 31, 2024, a report by the Ghana News Agency said.

The House further requested the Finance Ministry to deal with the shortfall of GH¢ 140.7 million so that the processes and the conduct of the 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections would not be compromised.

The Majority Leader and Leader of Government Business in Parliament, and Chairman of the Special Budget Committee of Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, who moved the Motion for the House to approve the Budgetary allocation for the EC, said the additional request of GH¢140.7 million was what the Commission had budgeted for and unfortunately, the Finance Ministry could only allocate the GH¢786.9 million to it.

“The Commission insists that without the GH¢140.7 million, it will be difficult to conduct timeously and in a proper way, the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections as slated for December 2024,” he said.

That, the Majority Leader said, was why the Special Budget Committee deemed it appropriate and fit to insist that the Commission be provided with the GH¢140.7 million.

Procurement

Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, who is also the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Suame, noted that the EC intended to undertake a number of activities and procured equipment for the successful conduct of the 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections.

He said significant among these was the procurement of additional BVDs and BVR to enable the Commission to increase the number of polling stations for a smooth poll, recruitment and training of electoral officers, replacement of exited staff, upgrade of Data Centre and the purchase of ICT equipment.

He said the Commission in view of the critical need for these expenditure items to effectively implement its planned programmes and activities, proposed a Budgetary request of a sum of GH¢932.03 million for the 2024 financial year.

Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said the Committee observed that the Finance Ministry, however, had capped the allocation to a total amount of GH¢786.9 million resulting in a budget shortfall of GH¢140.7 million.

“Again, the Commission further informed that the shortfall would compel the Commission to reduce its critical activities necessary for a successful conduct of the 2024 general election and, therefore, appeals to the committee to intervene to ensure that the proposed budgetary amount is approved and released on time to enable the Commission to undertake these planned programmes as scheduled,” Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said.

“The committee is of the view that the activities of the Electoral Commission are time-bound and extremely critical to the stability of the country and, therefore, any impediment in the way of the Commission may be costly to the country,” he said.