The United Kingdom (UK) has stopped funding projects and programmes that government wants to undertake.
The UK, over the years, has been one of the biggest donors of development aid and budgetary support to the country.
The disclosure is coming after a similar move by the European Union (EU), whose head of delegation, William Hannah said the Union now wants to focus on more sector-specific programmes.
UK High Commissioner to Ghana, Jon Benjamin, explained that the decision was mainly due to Ghana’s new status as a low middle-income country.
“Being classified as a lower middle-income country is no longer a least developed country, and Ghana’s economy is still developing. Budgetary support to Ghana is no longer on the cards because the government of Ghana is supposed to provide its own basic services,” he said.
However, he said the UK will still provide technical service and support private sector, particularly SMEs to grow and develop so they can become the motor of employment creation and growth in the future.
According to him, the nature of the aid programme is changing and it has to change over time, adding that there won’t be any budgetary support in any form again.
“That era has come to an end, and of course if the Ghanaian economy under any government continues to grow four or five, six or seven percent, then 10 years from now, it would be such a bigger economy that it shouldn’t be needing a huge amount of aid,” the Commissioner said.
“President Mahama has said himself in New York that what African countries need is not more aid but trade because ultimately it is the trade that creates the jobs and the spaces,” he explained.
The development could put pressure on government to look for alternate ways of funding most of its projects outlined in the budget.
This could possibly lead to more taxes or hikes to address this challenge, or government has to cut its expenditure to help manage the situation.
Source: myjoyonline
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Massa; THIS REALLY GOOD NEWS because lets us face it ; the cutting of aid is far long overdue !!!!!!!!; to me our poor performance in our economic development have been a complete failure due to these aid policy by these donors ; such decision should have been take 25 years ago by these so called donors from the US ; Europe and Canada ; to me the whole Aid enterprise is a BIG FRAUD !!!!!!!; because it encourages laziness ; a certain inefficient mind set amongst our elected or appointed officers and our President ; it paves the way for stilling by our leaders and causes great uncertainty when a corrupt government is threatened with aid cuts for their budgets ; this is happening right now with the Jon Mahama government because in the absence of these aid contribution the alternative is to borrow heavily to sustain their budgets ; this causes more poverty and does nor help the country ; lastly a lot of these aid monies are diverted into private pockets whilst the country folks suffer besides the idea of all aid has two edge sword ; it is given with the intention of assisting the people but at the same time it is given as corrupt way to influence our politicians to award contracts and still our monies from Ghana ;this GREAT NEWS WISH ALL COUNTERIES WILL FOLLOW SUIT TO STOP AID COMPLETELY !!!!!!!!
IS NANA ADDO LISTENING? HE WANTS TO CUT DOWN TAXES!!! IS HE PLANNING ON USING LOANS TO PAY WORKERS EACH MONTH? CLUELESS????
It's about time.....
IT WONT BE EASY UNLESS WE DECIDE TO STOP CORRUPTION AND TO WORK HARD TO EARN WHATEVER WE WANT TO ACHIEVE. MOST PEOPLE DONT WORK OR WORK LESS BUT WANT TO HAVE EVERYTHIN.
Thank you Lord for answering my prayers. End of aid era. Should have been over 12 years ago. We need to wake up as a nation
so is ghana really a middle income country? mahama and his ndc cohorts have looted the coffers of this country to make themselves rich so much so that they don't realize how impoverished the people are. they go and brag about this fake economic status to the whole world - shame. well if you are poor and you claim to be rich, you will have to face the consequences
we really dont care. per our resources and potential, we are richer than any european country but for incompetent, clueless and corrupt leadership. And you the europeans has been helping these corrupt leaders to loot and impoverish us so that you can unnecessarily stay relevant in our-lives.
Ofuiiiiiieee