The Minority in Parliament is predicting a total collapse of the Ghanaian economy similar to the situation in Greece unless the high debt stock of the country is addressed.
According to them, government’s continuous borrowing from both the domestic and the international markets will have dire consequences for the economy, hence their verdict.
[contextly_sidebar id=”T3oZCcMJnJetfLwCZcJsfdW1SeHFyZuQ”]Greece’s debt crisis was said to have been triggered by the structural weaknesses in the country’s economy coupled with overly high structural deficits and over 100 percent debt-to-GDP ratio.
In 2012, Greece had the largest sovereign debt default in history and became the first developed country to fail to make an IMF €1.6 billion loan repayment on June 30, 2015.
The government has a debt of €323bn.
The Center for Economic Policy Analysis (CEPA) has since warned the government of Ghana to immediately change its management structure or risk ending up like Greece.
The Finance Minister, Seth Terkper in his midyear budget review statement in Parliament, disclosed that the current debt stock of the country stood at ninety billion Ghana cedis representing 67.53 per cent of GDP.
At a press conference in Accra on Wednesday, the Minority Spokesperson on Finance Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei said that the Mahama Administration has expanded this borrowing and spending – its debt and deficit.
“For a nation that inherited a debt stock of 9.5 billion in January 2009, that is 85 % of what the NDC inherited from the NPP administration,” he added.
He was convinced that the economy might dry out of cash if government continues borrowing to service its debt.
“At this rate, government is on course to increase the debt inherited in tenfold by the end of August,” he stated.
According to him, the effect of the crowding up of the private sector is the high interest rate that businesses have to pay for accessing credit.
“At Ghana’s current debt, each of us- the 25 million Ghanaians owes 3,600 Ghana cedis,” he declared, “This debt does not include 1.5 billion dollars or 5.2 billion cedis Eurobond transaction that is expected to close by the end of September as well as the over 300 million dollars amount of loans that was recently approved by this parliament.”
“But they have borrowed so much that if you look at the pictures on CNN, it is evident that the Greeks don’t have control over their economy,” he added.
By: Selassie A. Amissah Mensah /citifmonline.com/