The Minority in Parliament has described Ghana’s current economic crisis as “historic” and is the worse Ghana has experienced in more than two decades.
[contextly_sidebar id=”9weLI7k80V7TuU1ojgDnqfnWZbiAtuzl”]The minority said this at a press conference to paint what they described as the “true state of the nation address.”
This follows President John Dramani Mahama’s State of the Nations Address which he made in Parliament about two weeks ago.
The President touched on measures government has put in place to relieve Ghanaians from the economic hardship.
Addressing the press conference on Monday, Minority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu noted that though in 2014 the average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the West Africa monetary zone was provisionally stated at 6.2 percent Ghana’s GDP growth rate (oil included) was 4.2% and the non-oil sector grew at only 3.5%.
“So Ghana was the country that was pulling the average GDP growth rate in the West African monetory zone growth downwards,” he noted.
“Mr President that is the plain truth but you did not tell Ghanaians,” he added.
The Minority Leader further stated that at the close of 2013, Ghana was the only country out of the six West African monetary zone countries that had failed to attain even one of the ten convergent criteria for the second year in secession adding that “In 2014, Ghana scored zero out of the ten convergence criteria involving the four primary and six secondary criteria.”
“Mr President this abysmal performance has not been seen in 22 years in Ghana. This is the true state of Ghana’s economy. The state of the economy is in such shambolic state that on Thursday March 12, 2015, the Minister of Finance is presenting to Parliament a reviewed budget for 2015. Note that this is not a supplementary budget….this means that we are throwing aside the 2015 budget approved in December 2014 only two months after the approval.”
Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu also indicated that it is possible that Ghana’s could slip back into the highly indebted poor (HIPC) country status.
“Ghana is on a super highway unsustainable debt levels that pushed us to HIPC. At this rate the international rating agencies may soon classify Ghana as a country with high risk of debt distress and thus compromise our ability to raise further financing from the international capital market and worst still incapacitate the country from servicing and paying our debts,” he added
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana