Ghana’s economy has grown averagely at 6.96% over the last three years, the ruling party NPP, has indicated.
In its 2020 manifesto, the party noted that the country recorded some of its best economic performance within the period spanning 2017 to 2019.
“…in real terms, the average real growth before 2017 (2014 to 2016) was 2.8%, while from 2017 (2017 to 2019) it was 6.96%”- NPP 2020 Manifesto
One of the main variables used to measure the health of an economy is its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate. The NPP indicated that Ghana is amongst the fastest growing economies in the world for the last three years with growth rates above 5% for each of these years.
“Growth in 2017 was 8.4%, 6.2% in 2018 and 6.5% in 2019, amongst some of the fastest growing economies in the world for the last three years”.
The highest real GDP growth rate of 14% over the last decade was recorded in 2011, with the lowest rate of 2.2% recorded in 2015. Compared to the period 2014 to 2016, growth rates of 2.9%, 2.2% and 3.4% were recorded for 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Figure 1 Real GDP growth rate in the past decade
Data released by the Ghana Statistical service (GSS) indicated that the overall GDP growth rate in the first quarter of 2020 was 4.9 percent as compared to 6.7 percent for the same period in 2019. The service sector still continues to be the fastest growing sector with growth rate of 9.5 percent in the first quarter of 2020 as compared to a growth rate of 7.2 per cent in the corresponding quarter in 2019. Growth rate of industry however, declined from 8.4 percent in the first quarter of 2019 to 1.5 percent in the corresponding sector in 2020. Growth rate of agriculture, however, picked up from 2.2 percent in the first quarter of 2019 to 2.8 percent in the corresponding sector in 2020.
The IMF however, projected Ghana’s economy to grow at 1.5 percent due to the detrimental impact of the coronavirus.
The NPP outlined over five hundred (500+) different activities, categorised under two hundred and eighty-nine promises (289) that they have delivered so far in their first term of office. Out of these, 16 promises relating to the macro-economy were highlighted.
In 2016, the NPP made a promise to restore overall macroeconomic stability when elected into office. This year’s manifesto indicated that they have done significantly well as far as restoring the macroeconomy is concerned.
“In our first three years in office, prior to the Coronavirus pandemic, we reduced inflation, doubled economic growth, reduced the rate of exchange rate depreciation, reduced the fiscal deficit and improved our external payments position”
NPP
Other key macroeconomic indicators highlighted were a declined in the Fiscal Deficit from 6.8% of rebased GDP in 2016 to 3.8% in 2018 and 4.8% in 2019, excluding cost of the one-off financial sector bailout. Inflation dropped steadily from the high of 15.4% at the end of 2016 to 7.9% (rebased) at the end of December 2019, about the lowest recorded since 1992
On the promise to Reduce the rate of government borrowing, the NPP indicated that,
“The Debt-to-GDP ratio increased by 49% between 2008 and 2012 and 19% between 2012 and 2016, but only 3.9% between 2016 and 2019 (excluding the cost of the financial sector bailout). Interest payments as a percentage of GDP declined from 6.9% in 2016 to 5.6% in 2018, and 5.7% in 2019”
Another major campaign by the NPP in 2016 was to build an economy which will create jobs and prosperity for all Ghanaians: “An Agenda for Jobs”. Based on this promise, the manifesto indicated that;
“Between 2017 and 2019, over two million full-time equivalent jobs were created in the public and private formal sectors, as well as through Government job creation programmes such as NABCO and Planting for Food and Jobs, made up of: 778,706 public sector jobs, 267,939 formal private sector jobs and 1,008,365 jobs under the Government Job-Creation Programmes (planting for food and jobs- 762,300, Nation Builders Corps- 100,000, National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (NEIP)-92,000, National Identification Authority- 35,380, Out-grower Value Chain Fund (Annual Average)- 7,254, and Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project (Annual Average)-11,431”.
