The Defence Minister, Dominic Nitiwul, has advised that all government ministries and agencies cut down any non-essential expenditure especially now that the country is seeking support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

According to him, the austerity measures being introduced to reduce government expenditure has also impacted the Defence Ministry and other security agencies.

Thus, currently, only essential operational expenditures are being allowed at the Ministry.

Explaining the situation at the Ministry on JoyNews’ PM Express, he said, “All sectors including that of the security must know that they must lower the expectation a little bit. Programmes that can be postponed, you have to; programmes that you believe that you can do your work without, you have to. All ministers must be on their feet, and so, for example you have to make sure that wasteful expenditure is cut off and everything is being done.”

He continued, “But there are some of the expenditure that we have to do to ensure that we save our country. You and me, or the average Ghanaian wants to wake up knowing that the country is safe, he has a country that he can move freely, so those operational expenditure we still have to go ahead as a country.

“Operation Calm life, Operation Cow Leg, Operation Cow Feet – if there’s a problem in a particular place you cannot say soldiers or police you cannot go. You have to find money along the line to go. You cannot say you’re not going to feed soldiers, you’ll have to feed them. We feed 12,000 soldiers on a daily basis, you have to feed them because they’re all spread around different places.”

“Same with poilce, same with fire service, if there’s a fire burning in Kanatamanto you cannot say fire service must not go, they must get fuel and they must be ready to move. There must be water, and there must be a fire hydrant all these kind of things that need to be done, it has to be done,” he said.

He noted that smaller projects such as maintenance works on the Ministry building, internet data among others have had to be either postponed for a favourable time, or reduced.

 “But there are a lot of programmes, for example, what we use our goods and services for, maybe painting of this Ministry or trying to do little little things; or maybe buying a lot of internet that you may not need too much; or making a lot of phone calls that you should not make.

“You have to cut down on a lot of those kind of things that’s why I am trying to say that non-essential things we all have to cut down including the security agencies, the security ministries. Things are not very normal,” he said.

He was, however, very optimistic that Ghana’s economic situation will let up in the very near future.

“But I believe like I said it’s a phase. I believe that Ghana the sort of managers of the economy we saw we went into that hole before, we came out in two years. I believe we’re going to come out again in two years or less,” he said.