After the back and forth, the long-awaited 2025 Expenditure in Advance of Appropriation, also known as the 2025 Mini-Budget, has finally been presented to parliament.
The mini budget to cater for government expenditure for the first quarter of 2025 was presented to the House today, Thursday, January 2, 2025 by the Minister for Finance, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam.
Dr. Amin Adam in his presentation to the House requested that parliament approves an amount of GHC 68.1 billion for the first three months of 2025 to ensure continuity before the main budget is presented by the incoming administration.
This amount is expected to pay salaries of public sector workers, cater for maintenance works, funding of vital social intervention programs as well as other statutory payments.
After the presentation by the Minister for Finance, Second Deputy Speaker, Andrew Asiamah Amoako referred the mini-budget to the Budget and Finance Committees of the House for consideration and review.
These committees are mandated to scrutinize the document and report back to the House for debate before approval.
This mini-budget is coming on the second day of the year, at a time when it was rather supposed to be in force due to the stalemate over the majority side in parliament leading to the suspension of sitting.
The stalemate which ended at the Supreme Court, in addition to some outstanding government business such as tax waivers caused the delay in the presentation and approval of the document.
It is quite unclear when the Budget Finance Committee will report back to the House for debate and approval. Sources within parliament have indicated that the committee is working to finalize the review, but there has been no official date set for the debate to take place. The delay in approval continues to raise concerns regarding the smooth operation of government programs for the first quarter of 2025.
