The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central constituency, Isaac Adongo has said the governing New Patriotic Party increased Ghana\u2019s debt stock by GHc3 billion every month since it came into office on January 7.<\/p>\n
According Adongo, a Member of Parliament\u2019s Finance Committee, the governing party has increased the country\u2019s debt stock by GHc15 billion within a period of five months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are told that we are re-profiling out debt and our debt will not go up. The reality is that only in the first quarter of the year, we added 5 billion to our public debt. By May in five months we increased it to 15billion. That means in April we increased it by 5 billion and in May we increased it by another 5 billion. That tells you that we are growing our public debt by an average of 3 billion a month over five months,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”Czwp7AdpKkIHe2yLe9aEZ2ljC5uDRfki”]The MP made the statement on the Floor of Parliament after the Minister of Finance; Ken Ofori-Atta presented the mid-year budget review in Parliament on Monday.<\/p>\n
Economy is on life support <\/strong><\/p>\n Mr. Adongo further chastised the NPP for taking credit for some gains made in Ghana\u2019s economy saying the NDC administration must be commended for laying the foundation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is only under this government that you bring a budget that is approved on 31st<\/sup> of March and by 1st<\/sup> of April you take credit for January, February and March. But what is the reality? The reality is very simple. Figures released by the Ghana Statistical service indicate that as at June, Ghana\u2019s economy minus oil and gas grew by 3.9%. in the same period last year without oil, John Dramani Mahama\u2019s government was 6.3%. Now we are being told that when you move 6.3% to 3.9% that is a growth of the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGross international reserves means nothing if you don\u2019t compare the depreciation of the cedi, in the same period last year our cedi depreciated by 0.04% now it did 2.5%. So when you depreciate your cedi by 2.5% it is better than 0.04% where did you get that analysis from? At the end of the day you are taking credit when you are yet to be on the feet. Mr. Speaker this economy is under life support and any attempt to do propaganda with the economy will expose us,\u201d he argued.<\/p>\n Debt stock hits GHc137 billion<\/strong><\/p>\n New figures from the Bank of Ghana (BoG) show that the country\u2019s total public debt hit GHS137.2 billion<\/strong> <\/a><\/span>as at May 2017.<\/p>\n This was contained in the economic and financial data released by the central bank at the end of its Monetary Policy Committee meeting.<\/p>\n According to the report, the debt stock increased by GHc9.4 billion in three months from GHc127.8 billion to GHc137.2 billion.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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