Ken Ofori-Atta
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has stated that government is dealing with the country’s public debt burden.
Making this known yesterday at a press briefing in Accra, he said the public debt, which stood at GH¢122 billion in 2016 had now increased to GH¢219 billion as at December 2020, representing 76.1%.
According to him, despite the harsh realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate of growth of the public debt had been low under the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration.
The low growth, he said, had been achieved despite the accelerated supply of critical infrastructure projects.
New Programmes Under CARE
Starting this month, he said government was rolling out eight new programmes under the Ghana CARE programme.
Acknowledging the economic challenges confronting the country, Mr. Ofori-Atta said like many economies, Ghana was living through its worst economic period.
He said this has put pressure on lives and livelihoods, but said however, that government was committed to addressing the challenges.
Revenue Generation
According to him, government acknowledged that as a nation, more needed to be done to improve revenue generation.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the minister said government undertook a number of economic and social initiatives such as the Free SHS, paperless ports, cleanup of the financial sector; all of which were aimed at boosting economic growth and development.
Fix The Country
He noted that over the last few weeks, he had followed the #FixTheCountry campaign on social media, and met its conveners who were not happy with the “failure on the part of successive governments to improve the lives of Ghanaians.”
Commending the youth for calling on the leaders to do their best, he said government would continue to work with the youth and other stakeholders in achieving economic development.
$200m Jobs Programme Coming
The Finance Minister called for a collaborative effort in addressing the current economic challenges facing Ghana, and said government was fast-tracking the creation of a $200 million jobs programme through private sector partnerships.
The $200 million programme for economic, jobs and skills development, he said, was a collaboration between government and the World Bank, which has been on the drawing board over three years now, and added that the programme was nearing implementation.
Wooing Amazon To Ghana
Touching on efforts aimed at creating jobs and promoting economic activities in Ghana, the minister said the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) was working to bring global e-Commerce giant, Amazon to Ghana.
By Melvin Tarlue