We strongly oppose plans to increase gov’t machinery staff by 1,570 – Minority

The Minority in Parliament has rejected plans to increase the staff strength of the government machinery by 1,570.

Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu said he failed to see how the increment should be a priority for the government at a time when the fortunes of the country were in shambles.

“We also strongly denounce plans to increase the size of the staff strength of the government machinery by a staggering 1,570, [on page 230 of the 2023 budget].

“If we’re reducing the size of government, I am not narrowing it to the elephant size of the government of ministers but even at the level of administrative and supporting staff at the presidency, which is captured under the budget of Office of the Government Machinery, which they are proposing to increase to 3,681,” he revealed.

The Tamale South MP believes there can be no justification for this move.

The minority is, therefore, demanding significant expenditure cuts from the government to achieve fiscal consolidation.

“The size of the government must necessarily be reduced, and we will demand that the size of the government is reduced. How can we accept an outrageous 1.4 billion allocation of the Contingency vote? We also oppose 10 million of what has been strangely described as Defence Advisory Services in the budget.

“Instead of cutting down on non-essential expenditure, we’ve seen an increase of 82 billion…some of the envisaged expenditure items are completely wasteful and needless, and we demand a cut in the 82 billion,” he said added.