Bagbin said this during an engagement with the media on the sidelines of the post-budget workshop on Sunday, November 27, 2022.
“The absence of openness and transparency can lead to suspicion and a profound sense of despair and hopelessness.
“It is in this regard that I call on the Minister of Finance to muster the courage to be candid, open and to speak truth to power.
“Don’t come and repeat what we have been told already, We know it. Give us policy alternatives,” myjoyonline.com quoted the former Nadowli-Kaleo lawmaker to have said.
Ghana is currently banking its hopes on a possible $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund while skyrocketing fuel prices, a rising cost of living and a depreciating cedi intensifies the prevailing hardship by the day.
In the 2023 budget statement, Ghanaians had expected that the government would announce some measures to ease their suffering. But it rather announced a freeze on all public sector employment, increased the VAT rate by 2.5% and removed the GHC 100 threshold for the controversial e-levy, all of which policies analysts say will worsen the hardship that the citizens are grappling with.