President Akufo-Addo has assured Ghanaians about the competence of his government in resolving the current economic challenges.
Addressing a meeting with the Council of State at the Jubilee House on Tuesday, he explained that, the country’s economic woes are not unique, as other countries in the world are facing similar setbacks.
According to him, the global economic downturn, however, is not an excuse; and therefore his government will work to make the situation better.
“It is no secret that our economy is going through difficult times. It is also no secret that we are not alone in that exercise. The phenomenon that we’re facing, applies to many parts of the world as well. But that doesn’t therefore mean that government is impotent in trying to find solutions.
Our retreat which you referred to, is in some way quite timely, because as a general rule, we have retreats each year on a quarterly basis, and this is the first one for this year. Fortunately for us, it coincided with these difficulties, and the public anxiety about the way that the economy was going. It gave us therefore the opportunity of the three days to look at depth, where the economy was headed, and what measures were necessary to be taken”, President Akufo-Addo stated.
He also announced that, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta will address the nation on March 24, on the specific measures, which have been decided by government to better the economy.
“The decision was that the Minister for Finance, on my instructions, is going to have a major engagement with the nation on Thursday, where he is going to be in a position to lay out specifically, the measures we’ve taken and we intend to take, to correct, as it were, put the ship of state, steep on a better keel”, he disclosed.
Ghana’s current public debt stock stands at a staggering GH¢341.8 billion with a corresponding debt to GDP ratio of more than 77% as of September ending 2021.
This means if the country should share this amount across the country’s 30.8 million population, everyone will owe approximately GH¢11,000.
In terms of interest payments on our borrowings, Ghana has spent on average 147 billion Ghana cedis, which is 47 billion Ghana cedis more than our projected revenue plus grants for 2022.
In the first quarter of 2022, government has indicated that it will borrow a total of GH¢24.5 billion from the domestic market of which GH¢20.7 billion will be used to service existing debt in the local market, leaving government with just GH¢3.8 billion to finance other expenses.