Government\u2019s appetite to borrow few weeks to the general elections continues to attract concerns as some observers caution Ghana\u2019s debt could hit uncontrollable level by next year.<\/p>\n
Parliament in this few days has passed a number of loan agreements totaling over 900 million cedis.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Citi Business News<\/strong>, Economist Dr. Ebo Turkson stated that the negative impact of excess borrowing was the result of government\u2019s frequent resort to bonds in retiring interests on loans.<\/p>\n According him, Ghana already has a number of debts that must be cleared to reduce the stock.<\/p>\n He pointed out that, interest payment on some of the country\u2019s debts are a challenge for the fiscal stability of the government.<\/p>\n \u201cMy concern is how sustainable is this approach of borrowing to meet the payment of our debt, we are now under a situation that we cannot even generate local revenue to service our debt, if that is case then the sustainability of our debts will be a challenge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He stated that there must be a more pragmatic approach to solving Ghana\u2019s debt challenges since most of the bonds will mature very soon.<\/p>\n \u201cThe sustainability of debts is really something that we should be concerned about giving that in the next 10 to 15 years most of these bonds that we borrow over the last four , five years are going to mature, even the interest rates , we are borrowing to pay the interest rates, I don\u2019t know what we are going to do when we are suppose to pay in full, that is when we are suppose to amortize the loan itself,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n Recommending some measures, Dr. Turkson maintained that government must direct funds to expand the real sectors of the economy to stimulate aggregate demand to create employment.<\/p>\n \u201cMy point is we need to borrow to expand the base of the economy. I think that what this government has not been able o do properly is to extend the economy and rather get more revenue from the expansion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Lawrence Segbefia\/citibusinessnews.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Government\u2019s appetite to borrow few weeks to the general elections continues to attract concerns as some observers caution Ghana\u2019s debt could hit uncontrollable level by next year. Parliament in this few days has passed a number of loan agreements totaling over 900 million cedis. Speaking to Citi Business News, Economist Dr. Ebo Turkson stated that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32,171],"tags":[2002],"yoast_head":"\n