In a panel discussion held on the 25th of November 2022, Former Deputy Minister of Information, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, stated that the current government, which is presided by H.E. President Akuffo-Addo and his Vice, Dr. Bawumia, has destroyed Ghana’s economy and brought it into shambles.
Mr. Ofosu noted that, the President and his administration has brought the economy to its knees, and they have done this through “willful hopelessness and incompetence”. He mentioned that with respect to the 2023 budget that was read, inflation has risen to a height of 40% and the country’s exchange rate has depreciated.
“Our public debt is at the highest level ever, even though the minister tries to conceal the true amount by capping it at September. We all know that it has crossed the five hundred billion Ghana cedi mark, if you add contingent liabilities which are due. Indeed, the minister himself alluded to it in the budget, and the exchange rate depreciation that has swelled up the foreign component of the debt.”
Felix Kwakye Ofosu
According to him, the management of the public debt has been a “spectacular collapse” and this has birthed a lot of unprecedented hardships that Ghanaians have never seen in their lifetime. He iterated that the recent reading of the 2023 budget only confirmed what the people already know and exposed problems that were even deeper than the people had imagined.
“To begin with, if you read the budget, government has missed all its targets. The biggest problems we had were the public debts and then the escalating fiscal deficit. You see government set a target, that at the end of this year, they will achieve a budget deficit of 2.2%. By the third quarter, they are doing 7.4%.”
Felix Kwakye Ofosu
Mr. Ofosu mentioned that Ghana is likely to end up with double digits deficit at the end of this financial year and he termed this as a monumental disaster.
Technical Advisor To The Vice President Commends Government’s Efforts
Meanwhile on the same panel discussion, Technical Advisor to the Vice President, Dr. Tiah Abdul-Kabiru Mahama, stated that he the government has done a remarkable job in the midst of these crisis to stay within the parameters of the economy and not to pose excessive hardship on the people of Ghana.
On the issue of tax, he said that government was going to adopt measures to ensure the improvement in revenue collection. He stated that the government was going to introduce the Unified Property Rate Platform, and the GRA will serve as a revenue collector on this platform. He also mentioned that, the 70-30 sharing rule was going to be administered.
“Per the Local Government Act, the district assemblies are supposed to be in charge of property rates, but government coming in or central government coming in through the GRA to collect this revenue, hopefully, with government’s intention to fast track this process, it’s going to rake in a lot of revenue for the government.”
Dr. Kabiru Mahama
According to Dr. Kabiru Mahama, government was cutting down a lot of expenses like housing and fuel allowances for officials in the area of expenditure. He explained that by law, a threshold of at least 25% of the country’s domestic revenue is supposed to be earmarked, and this he said makes the budget rigid and subsequently makes it difficult for the government to operate.
Government intends to reduce this threshold from the 25% to 17.5%, and this is going to help with the management of the economy and with the revenue aspect, he said.
