The government spokesperson on finance, Daniel Okyem Aboagye says Ghana’s economy is on a sound footing to meet its obligations despite the rising public debt stock.
According to the latest summary of Macroeconomic and Financial Data from the Bank of Ghana, the total public debt stock stands at GHS273 billion as of the end of September 2020.
The new debt figure pushes Ghana’s debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio to 71 percent, crossing the dreaded 70 percent threshold for the first time since December 2016 when the figure stood at 73.3 percent.
The figures from the Bank of Ghana further indicated that the total public debt stock which started the year at GHS219.6 billion has increased by 26.7 percent within nine months.
But the government spokesperson on finance contends that the superior economic management record of the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s administration is an indication that government is in the position to invest the borrowed funds productively to retire the debt when payment is due.
“If you have an economy where the production capacity and growth capacity is doing well, agriculture and industry will also be doing well, and these sectors are growing, they will pay for themselves ultimately. The borrowing rate under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was over 100 percent. But we are not running the economy like them. We are borrowing at a decreasing rate.”
“As long as we remain a country that is unable to raise so much money to meet our expenditure requirements, borrowing will continue to be part of our lives for some time. It is not bad as long as these funds are channelled to pertinent and productive sectors,” he added.
