Caretaker Finance Minister, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu says government revenue dropped by 13.6 billion in the year 2020.

The Majority leader disclosed this in Parliament, Friday, while presenting the 2021 budget on behalf of Finance Minister-designate Ken Ofori-Atta.

According to him, the development is due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on various sectors of the economy.

“The year 2020 was a difficult period for Ghana and the rest of the world. Never before in recent history has a pandemic triggered such dramatic changes to lives and livelihoods simultaneously.

“This unprecedented crisis led to a sudden shortfall in Government revenues amounting to GH¢13.6billion,” he said on the floor of Parliament.

He also revealed that there was an unexpected and unavoidable rise in expenditures of about GH¢11.7billion.

Ghana, like other countries economies has been hard struck by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The situation, according to the Suame MP, disrupted supply chains and exerted undue pressure on economic and financial systems, affecting businesses and jobs.

He further noted that the drastic reduction in economic activities, in turn, led to a huge drop in domestic revenues, combined with a sharp and unplanned hike in Covid-related expenditures.

As a result, developing and emerging economies, including Ghana, have had to deal with external headwinds, falling commodity prices and rising expenditures to address the effects of the pandemic.

Various interventions were however implemented in the country to stabilise the economy.

This included providing free electricity, food and water supply for the citizenry and the roll-out of a GH¢750 million CAP-BuSS Programme in May 2020 to directly support Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs).

In addition, government “established a GH¢2 billion Guarantee Facility to support all large enterprises and for job retention; a GH¢100 million Fund for Labour and Faith-Based Organisations for retraining and skills development; an Unemployment Insurance Scheme to provide temporary income support to workers who are laid off due to the pandemic; transferred over GH¢50 million to 400,000 most-vulnerable individuals under the LEAP programme among other interventions.