From GhanaWeb.

The John Dramani Mahama administration will resist the temptation to overspend in 2016, Finance Minister Seth Terkper told Parliament.

Despite the fact that 2016 is an election-year, “we will resist the temptation of election-year overspending,” he said.

Election-year overspending has been an established trend in Ghana.

A three-year bailout program from the International Monetary Fund has compelled the Ghanaian government to adopt austerity measures geared towards stabilizing the economy and shoring up the value of the cedi.

Ahead of Friday’s budget presentation, the main opposition New Patriotic Party expressed fears that the government will spend recklessly for political purposes.

The 2016 budget will be an election-year budget with reckless spending and corruption — a situation which makes the New Patriotic Party nervous, said Acting Chairman Freddie Blay at a press conference Wednesday.

The key aim of the IMF bailout program, Blay said, is to “control public expenditure to avoid the horrendous experience of reckless spending we saw in 2012, which has brought years of untold hardship on the people; caused the cedi to fall heavily, collapsed businesses, created mass unemployment, piled up huge debts, all forcing us to go for the IMF bailout in the first place.”

Terkper, however, told Parliament that the government will be financially disciplined in its spending next year. He also promised that the election will be free and fair.

“…I assure that the Ielectoral commission) will be adequately resourced to ensure free, fair, and transparent elections,” Terkper said, adding: “Let there be no doubt the economy benefits from our peaceful and acclaimed elections.”

Read more at GhanaWeb.