Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has explained the loans that the Akufo-Addo administration has contracted over the years, by listing the projects that have been undertaken with it, which the opposition NDC always making noise over it that the government is increasing the public debt but having nothing to show.
Speaking at a forum held by TESCON, the student’s wing of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on Thursday, April 7 at Kasoa, he explained that ‘’the projects that we have undertaken from the loans over the years, you will see that we borrowed to build the University of Environment Science and Sustainable Development, that is part of the debt, the Pokuase Interchange is part of the debt, the Tema Mpakadan Railway is part of our debt, the Kumasi Airport Phase 2 is part of our debt, Tamale Airport is part of our debt.”
He explained that in addition to the Covid expenditure, the banking sector clean-up exercise and payment of excess power in the energy sector as a result of the contracts signed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration, accounted for the rising public debt.
Dr, Bawumia noted that the government needed to save the lives of the people hence the decision to prioritize spending in the health sector to restore the health of the people, adding that spending in all these areas cost the government ¢50.1billion.
“Between 2019 and 2021 Ghana’s debt to GDP increased by 17.6 percentage points of GDP. It should be noted that without the 15.1 billion of the exceptional items – the financial sector and then the energy and Covid Ghana’s debt to GDP would have been about 68 percent instead of the current 80 percent” he said.
Dr. Bawumia further attributed the current 6hardships in the Ghanaian economy to the ongoing geopolitical tension between Russia and Ukraine.
-BY Daniel Bampoe