Ghana’s Finance and Economic Planning Minister Kwadwo Baah Wiredu will be reading the national budget for 2007 on Thursday.

He would be seeking the approval of Parliament for government’s designs to raise money to sponsor its programmes and for how taxpayers’ funds, loans and grants will be spent.

The Association of Ghana Industries for instance is expecting the budget to grant all domestic manufacturing start-ups a five-year tax holiday while government takes steps to impose a minimum duty of 20 per cent on products that could be manufactured locally but are being imported.

Others are asking for a budget that would introduce ways of reducing the cost of doing business in the country and cut down tremendously, structures that engender lengthy delays in registering and getting businesses off the ground.

Professor N. N. Nsowah-Nuamah, Acting Government Statistician has already welcomed the performance of the economy over the passing year even in times as difficult as currently pertain in the country where electricity supply to fuel industries has been erratic.

Professor Nsowah-Nuamah’s joy stems from the .4 percent rise in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the past year, which currently stands at 6.2. He said the rise is attributable to improvements in the cocoa sector, increases in the construction of roads and bridges and demand for electricity.

Other areas the budget will be expected to address predictably, will be solutions to Ghana’s energy crisis and a comprehensive public sector salary structure.

But all the above, in the meantime, are an overkill for 35-year-old Joyce Coker.

For five years Joyce has been roasting ripe plantain for sale in the Sadisco area of Kokomlemle, Accra and all she expects of the budget, if it can afford, are arrangements to get her and others engaged in her scale of business, interest free start-up credits.

She told myjoyonline that she knew it would not be possible for the government to physically hand her money for her trade, but it could do that indirectly if it addressed the problem of high interest rates on loans from the banks.

She buys her plantain supplies from market queens and middle women who would quote prices arbitrarily, and the reason is that she has no cash to purchase her requirements, which also means she has no effective bargaining power.

In contrast to her simplified budget expectations, a couple other traders at the Kaneshie Station lorry park at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, were not even aware a budget was expected in less than 24 hours.

And they did not mind either, for them, budget or no budget life will go on