Government has been urged to walk the talk and stick by its plans and projections to turn the economy around and not merely engage in rhetoric.

According to auditing and accounting firm, PwC in its review of the 2024 Budget, the government must do the things it promises and with sincerity too.

In the view of PwC, the Ghana Mutual Prosperity Dialogue will serve as the acid test for this sincerity.

"Government must walk its talk, not merely engage in rhetoric. It must do the things it promises and with sincerity too. In our view, the Ghana Mutual Prosperity Dialogue will serve as the acid test for this sincerity. Various stakeholders would be observing closely to see how Government/ the Ministry of Finance would utilise the Dialogue as a resource for economic management".

Ahead of the 2024 Budget reading by the Finance Minister, PwC said it ran a brief survey of five questions and the responses showed that “there is deep mistrust of government— mistrust of its expressed intent, mistrust of its word, mistrust of its competence or capabilities.”

For instance, it said less than 30% of businesses and professionals believed that the Minister’s 2024 budget would include the necessary interventions to help the Government deliver on its macroeconomic targets.  

Also, more than 85% of respondents noted that it is very unlikely the government would meet the primary balance target of 0.5% of Gross Domestic Product in 2024, an election year.

Similarly, less than 15% of survey respondents agreed that the government is committed to and would really be able to use the Ghana Mutual Prosperity Dialogue as the platform it professes it to be, and to drive 2024 macroeconomic growth goals.

“Without a doubt, the picture is not pretty. And this should not be surprising with the memory of the challenging year of 2022, and the DDEP [Domestic Debt Exchange Programme) experience in 2023”.

“What this reveals to us is that the Ministry of Finance can’t simply focus on its technical mandate and on executing the IMF-supported PC-PEG. It cannot simply go ahead and execute the budget. It must seek to proactively engage and communicate its plans and actions, and results thereof, in as simple terms as possible. It should be very creative about such communication to be able to reach the masses and for people of various walks of life to understand what it is doing to execute its mandate”, it added.