Election year projects wrong - ISSER

Inaugurating projects in an election year is wrong, Prof Felix Asante, Director of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) has said.

Speaking at a Business Breakfast Meeting on Election Budget Deficit and Its Implication on Macroeconomic Stability organised by Graphic Business and Stanbic Bank in Accra on Tuesday November 1, Prof Asante said putting an end to such a practice in election years will help control government’s expenditure. He said rather than inaugurating projects in election years, their execution and opening should be spread within the four-year term of any government.

“This attitude of only seeing development in ‘the year of election’ is something that we should move from as a country. You see the government of the day trying to commission projects and my take is that if we are able to spread development over the four years, we will avoid the situation where six months to elections a lot of commissioning of infrastructure (goes on),” Prof Asante said.

Prof Asante said the status quo “goes with a whole set of payments and has implications on personal emolument in the following year and that is one area hurting the nation”.

He explained that controlling expenditure in an election year “will send good signals to the investment community and can translate into increased economic activity after elections”.