The Finance Minister Dr Mohammed Amin Adam has requested approval from the Finance Committee of Parliament for the withdrawal of GH¢ 500 million from the Contingency Fund.
This is to help tackle the imminent food insecurity expected due to the dry spell experienced across eight regions of Ghana.
To complement this withdrawal, the Finance Minister said, government is mobilizing support from Development Partners as well as realigning approved fiscal operations in the 2024 Budget.
“Mr. Chairman, given the assessed impact of the impending food security crisis in five (5) Northern Regions and Three (3) Transtional Zones affecting over 900.00 farmers and hiegthening the risk of extremism, your urgent approval would enable Government implement the critical measures required to address the situation,” the Fnance Minister said in the letter.
Below is the full letter…
The Ministry is in receipt of letter no. SC504/505/03 dated 19th August, 2024 from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), requesting funding to implement a National Emergency Response Programme to address an impending food security crisis.
In the letter under reference, MoFA indicates that as a result of protracted poor rainfall in eight (8) regions of the country – namely, Northern, Upper East, North East, Savannah, Upper West, Bono, Bono East and Oti, crop production have been significantly disrupted resulting in:
Food shortage:
Loss of Farmer Investment income:
Decline in GDP, and
Increase in security threats and extremism.
In view of the above, MoFA is requesting for funding estimated at GH¢8.36 billion, to implement a number of measures to avert a full-blown food security crisis including: Mopping up stock from farmers;
Urgent importation of Grains; and Cash Transfers as well as Input Support to affected farmers.
Mr. Chairman, considering that we are eight (8) months into the implementation of the 2024 Budget and the proposed interventions are unplanned expenditure occasioned by a “force majeure”, Government can not fund the request of GH¢8.36 billion solely from a reallocation of existing budget lines in the 2024 Budget.
In light of the foregoing, we write to request approval from the Finance Committee for the withdrawal of GH¢ 500 million from the Contingency Fund, in accordance with Article 177 subsection 1 of the 1992 Constitution, Section 36 subsection 1 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921) as well as Section 227 subsection 1 of the Standing Orders of Parliament of Ghana.
To complement this withdrawal, Government is mobilizing support from Development Partners as well as realigning approved fiscal operations in the 2024 Budget.
Mr. Chairman, given the assessed impact of the impending food security crisis in five (5) Northern Regions and Three (3) Transtional Zones affecting over 900.00 farmers and hiegthening the risk of extremism, your urgent approval would enable Government implement the critical measures required to address the situation.
