Public debt now 77.1% of GDP
Ghana’s public debt stock currently stands at 77.1 percentage points of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
This is according to the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta.
Making the assertion in his presentation of the 2021 Mid-year budget review, the Finance Minister remarked that the nation’s debt stock including financial sector bailout and energy sector costs amounted to 77.1 percent of GDP as of end-June 2021 from the 76.1 percentage points of GDP recorded at end-December 2020.
Excluding the financial sector bailout and energy sector costs, the Finance Minister pegged the country’s total debt stock at 72.9 percent of GDP.
According to the Minister, the increase in the country’s debt stock for the first half of the year is mainly due to the issuance of Eurobond, Covid related costs, and contingent liabilities.
“Mr. Speaker, the provisional nominal debt stock as at end-June 2021 stood at GHȼ334.56 billion (US$58.04 billion), representing 77.1 percent of GDP. This was up from GHȼ291.6 billion (US$50.8 billion) at the end of December 2020. This stock included the financial and energy sector bailouts. Excluding the Financial Sector Bailout, the nominal debt stock as a percentage of GDP falls to 72.9 percent.”
“The increase in the debt stock was mainly because of the Eurobond issuance in April 2021, COVID-19 pandemic effect, contingent liabilities, and front-loading of financing to meet cash flow requirements for the first half of the year,” said the Finance Minister.
The Minister’s assertion that the 77.1 percent debt-to-GDP includes the financial sector bailout and energy sector costs goes contrary to popular views of the aforementioned exceptional costs not being inclusive to the nation’s debt stock.
