Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has expressed concern about the way and manner some Ghanaians have blown the country’s debt situation out of proportion.
According to him, the world is in a new normal and therefore there is no alarm about the nation’s rising debt.
Answering a question at his vetting yesterday, Mr. Ofori-Atta who will be the first Finance Minister to be appointed for the second time said “I think that we are making a mounting out of a mole hill; the fact of the matter is that when you read the document, the fiscal’s you would know what our debt liabilities are and that is a fact.”
“The question for any nation is to determine how best we manage our debt. And we had argued with the international community [IMF, World Bank] that this is a special event, and until such time that we know the full cost of it we are not going to add it together. But never was it not disclosed”, he reacted to a question by Minority Leader that there was an undisclosed GH¢6.2- GH¢8bn which has not been added to the national debt.
Furthermore, “the question is was it disclosed, and if it was disclosed, could you add up to summary– you will be able to add up to a summary. There is a new normal, have I told you how we are going to be doing it and I have told you that once we are cleared on that by the third quarter or fourth quarter we will come to normal”, he mentioned.
“I think that we are all familiar with our debt in terms of coming in to meet about GH¢122 billion and being at GHS292 billion today. I think what has been in contention is the way in which we categorize the financial services sector and the energy sector which is identified in the books”, he emphasised.
“There’s been a lot of philosophical debate as to accommodate that [public det]. Our sense is that we are closed to the completion of financing of both the asset management companies and the banking system, and therefore we should be by the end of the third quarter or so or end-year have those numbers completed so that we can add them on”, Mr. Ofori-Atta said.
“In addition, there really seems to be a new normal in the world, African debt has moved from 34% to 56%, so beginning to equalize to have that standard after that period, I think that is where we are leading to”, he stressed out
Ghana’s public debt stock hit GH¢291.6 billion at the end of December 2020, approximately 76.1% of Gross Domestic Product.
This is compared with 62.4% of GDP (GH¢218.2 billion) at the end of December 2019.
Of the total debt stock, domestic debt amounted to GH¢149.8 billion (39.1% of GDP), while the external debt was GH¢141.8 billion (37% of GDP).
Source: mypublisher24.com