Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has disclosed the current economic crisis will worsen in the coming years.
According to him, all international development institutions are projecting tough times ahead and stressed this is the time to be brutal with the truth.
He made the disclosure at a post-budget workshop on the Budget Statement and Economic Policy for the 2023 financial year during the weekend at Ho.
Mr. Ofori-Atta indicated projections of the global economy in 2023 and beyond put inflation higher than seen in several decades.
Global growth, he said, is projected to slow down from an estimated 3.2% in 2022 to 2.7% in 2023. He pointed out there have been four resets that still point downward.
He indicated that the impact of these global shocks together with domestic development has resulted in high exchange rate depreciation, high inflation, rising interest rates, significant fiscal stress, unsustainable debt burden, dwindling gross international reserves at the Bank of Ghana, credit rating downgrades and low GDP growth.
According to the Minister, if there ever was an economic crisis, this is one of them.
He lamented how these challenges have derailed the remarkable turnaround the government achieved prior to the COVID pandemic between 2017 and 2019.
Macroeconomic stability, he said, was largely restored during the time and growth rebounded strongly with the government investing about GH¢28.3 billion in growth-enhancing and employment creation flagship programmes and social interventions.
He assured the 2023 Budget has been prepared to restore macroeconomic stability, promote fiscal and debt sustainability and build resilience for faster economic recovery and protect the poor and vulnerable.
He called for creativity and changes in some rules as the government confronts the current economic crisis.
He stressed that government is very clear on the technical interventions but argued in order to rise and build there must be a common language in working together to create resilience to overcome the crisis.
The Finance Minister appealed to MPs to therefore imbibe the spirit of patriotism and work together in unity to help revive the economy.