The Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Mr. Kwadwo Baah Wiredu, has assured the nation that Government is still committed not to fall into the temptation of overspending just to please some constituencies and political interest groups to win the December 2008 elections. He also assured the nation that the sense of financial discipline that has characterised the development programmes and agenda or the New Patriotic Party administration will continue to guide it into the 2008 elections and other election years to come, saying that political expediency cannot justify in the short or long run any unnecessary creation of distortions in any national economy to win votes and political power. “We will not overspend. We cannot overspend; because we have to follow the budget and work within the limitations of the revenue that we gain from all our revenue agencies like GPHA, Internal Revenue Service, Customs and Excise and DVLA. “The law is that, based on what they bring in as revenue, we fund development projects programmed to receive priorities” and in that regard, it is really difficult to go outside of the budget for any funding for politically-connected projects to win votes over one's political enemies ...” he explained. The Finance Minister was speaking to the Ghana Observer in a telephone chat Saturday morning. According to the Minister, apart from that sense of financial discipline and commitment on the part of the NPP administration to achieve its agenda of leading the nation into an economic paradise, the action plan of any serious government has no room and space for programmes and projects not approved in the budget. Besides, he stated, there is a limit to Government borrowing for such unbudgeted for projects, and any government therefore that attempts to create and implement unplanned development projects just for the sake of winning votes will find its economy out of balance. He said the normal thing in any civilised State is that regions, cities, districts or towns and villages have their project requirements and developmental needs already programmed, with resources being allocated to all these areas and the particular projects. So at any given time, based on the road map for the economy and our developmental needs, a particular district receives so much in terms of kilometres of road, so much in terms of kilowatts of electricity or so much in terms of other infrastructure like markets, health facilities and schools. On Government’s objectives to bring inflation down to a single digit, the Minister said much as that has been the objective and Government therefore remains committed largely to attaining that objective, recent unanticipated hikes in the price of crude oil from $55 to 103 create peculiar problems for the Government in attaining that goal as early as it would wish. “The impact of these unanticipated hikes in the price of crude oil from as low as $55 to the current $103, in terms of prices of goods and services, are obvious,” he admitted, asserting, however, that in spite of those difficulties, Government is still on top of issues if one took into consideration, for instance, the current minimum wage, the price at which farmers are paid for each bag of cocoa, salaries and wages in the civil and public services as well as that for security services and judicial services. Continuing his analysis, he stated that: “If you take the rate of the dollar to the cedi in 1982, when the Rawlings regime took over, it was 2.75. Between that time and 2000, when the Rawlings regime wound down, it was 7000. What we have tried to do is prevent the cedi, which has been free falling since the last administration took over the nation, stabilize it and ensure that cost of living and doing business is improved. If you take the minimum wage and check it against the price of bread, for instance, in 2000; and use that same ratio against the price of bread today based on the current minimum wage, you find a vast improvement. That gives reason for hope ...” Source: Ghanaian Observer