Ghana’s total public debt now stands at 74.4 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), translating into some Ghs 286.9 billion in monetary terms.
The new debt figure represents a 3.3 percentage points increase when compared to the end-September 2020 debt figure of was Ghs 274.1 billion which represented 71.1 per cent of GDP.
Compared to end-November 2019, when the total debt stock stood at 61.4 per cent, the new debt amount represents an increment of 13 per cent.
External debt of GDP end-November 2020 as reported in the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) January 2021 Summary of Economic and Financial Data, stood at Ghs 139.6 billion.
The Ghs 139.6 billion external debt to GDP represents a year-on-year increment of 4.2 per cent from the end-November 2019 figure of Ghs 111.7 billion. This implies that foreign investors increased their participation in the country’s debt market.
Domestic debt as a percentage of GDP also increased from Ghs 102.9 billion end-November 2019 to Ghs 147.3 billion end-November 2020, marking a 9.2 percentage points increment.
Government’s total expenditure for the 2020 fiscal year is estimated by Fitch Solutions to have increased by 31.5 per cent due to efforts by government to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy.
The huge increase in the nation’s debt stock comes as no surprise as government for most part of 2020 borrowed from multilateral and bilateral institutions and domestic sources to finance its stimulus packages to businesses and subsidies on electricity and water to households.
Total expenditure incurred by government for 2020 according to Fitch Solutions is Ghs 92.2 billion as against government’s initial expenditure budget of Ghs 84.5 billion which was later revised to Ghs 96.3 billion.
