Ghana’s Minority in Parliament has stated that every Ghanaian owes GHS7,000 as a result of the country’s ballooning public debt stock which is now US$38.9 billion (GHS198 billion), GHS2 billion shy of GHS200 billion as of March 2019.
Since November 2018 that BoG last released its data, the total debt stock has gone up by ¢22 billion in just 4 months. From March 2018 to March 2019, it’s gone up by ¢51 billion. The total debt stock represents 57% of the country’s GDP.
In January this year, the total public debt was GHS176.6 billion (US$35.7 billion) and GHS180.7 billion (US$35 billion) for February.
The figure for January and February represented 51.3 per cent and 52.5 per cent of GDP.
A total of GHS21.4 billion was added to the public debt in the first three months of 2019.
The current debt is inclusive of the US$3 billion Eurobond issued by the government in March this year.
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However, in a related development, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has stated emphatically that the Akufo-Addo administration will continue to borrow, despite concerns about the country’s debt.
According to him, it is up to the country to find the middle ground to make it possible.
“Borrowing is not bad if you have the resources to be able to pay it back and the balance that you achieve. As to where the resources will come from, you scan the international market including your own domestic scene and figure out how you are going to do that,” he said.
He argues that developed countries like Japan is 300% of debt over GDP and they are able to do that because they have built infrastructure to be able to generate revenue for that.
