Government has given the assurance that the impact of the new loans it is contracting will be minor since they are all concessionary loans.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s debt to GDP ratio is almost 70 percent but government is allying fears of the public that the nation will not go HIPC.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can\u2019t be true,\u201d said a Deputy Minister for Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson, adding that \u201clooking at the rate of adjustment that the country is going through, our debt is under control, we are actually going through a series of adjustments from where we were.\u201d<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”lSiwZN3xP6iR2QjJMedWJEjkYucz1JN9″]\u201cIn fact, the primary deficit moved from 8.7% in 2012 to 4% in 2014. We have projected to move from the primary deficit to surpluses by end of 2016. This will bring the country\u2019s debt situation to a sustainable level\u2026whether you believe it or you don\u2019t believe it, look at what we have been able to achieve?…what is happening now is that we are bring down the debt to sustainable limit,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the Finance Ministry laid before Parliament about six loan agreements for approval<\/a><\/strong><\/span> by the House.<\/p>\n Currently, Ghana\u2019s debt stock is about 70% to GDP and industry players have raised serious concerns about government\u2019s appetite for borrowing despite its inability to pay its debts.<\/p>\n The Deputy Finance Minister however told Citi News\u2019 Richard Sky that all the loan agreements \u201care highly concessional,\u201d adding that \u201cthese are standard loans\u2026these are not commercial loans; these are concessional loans for the purpose of budget financing.\u201d<\/p>\n He admitted that indeed, government is contracting loans, but he was quick to explain that \u201cthe 2015 budget threw out the deficit and this deficit should be financed\u201d but government, he said resorted to talking to multi-donor budget support groups who agreed to finance the budget through the agreements that were laid before the House on Thursday.<\/p>\n Mr. Forson revealed that government has projected that it will receive $500 million from development partners but he stressed that \u201cthe impact will of these debts will be negligible because of the concessionalities.\u201d<\/p>\n He served notice to critics of the government and other doom sayers that the debt level will be effectively managed.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of the time, you will have people out there who will doubt the government but I can assure that in the last few years, every single thing that we have done, there were people out there who had come out to say that it could never be done but we have proven to the world that we can do it and we have done it. Those projections that we\u2019ve made for 2016 will be achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By: Efua Idan Osam\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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