Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and appointed Caretaker Finance Minister, Osei Kyei Mensa-Bonsu, has said Ghana’s total public debt for the year 2020 would have peaked at 58.7 per cent if not some non-recurrent expenditures incurred for the period under review.
Delivering the 2021 Budget Statement on the floor of Parliament on Friday, March 12, Mr Kyei Mensa-Bonsu, indicated that country’s total public debt had now reached Ghs 291.6 billion – 76.1% of GDP – as at the end of December 2020.
An increase of some Ghs 169 billion from a total debt figure of Ghs 122 billion – 56.9% of GDP in 2016.
According to Mr Kyei Mensa-Bonsu, the non-recurrent expenditures that accounted for the surge in the public debt include; fiscal impact of COVID-19 (Ghs 19.7 billion), cost of financial sector clean up (Ghs 21 billion), cost of excess capacity charges paid to IPPs (Ghs 12 billion) and the impact of the reduction in growth from an average of 7% from 2017 to 2019 to 0.9% in 2020.
“Mr Speaker, if these expenditures are excluded and the drop in GDP growth in 2020 primarily attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic is taken into account, the total stock of debt for 2020 would have been approximately Ghs 238.9 billion implying a debt to GDP ratio of 58.7%,” he averred.
Speaking further, Caretaker Finance Minister Kyei Mensa-Bonsu, posited that despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and its related expenditures coupled with massive investments in flagship programmes such as the Free SHS, Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ), 1D1F, NABCO among others, the rate of public debt accumulation has been lower under the Nana Akufo-Addo-led government than under the John Mahama-led government.
To prove his assertion, Mr Kyei Mensa-Bonsu stated that public debt stock for the period between 2004 and 2008 grew by 30%, by 269% for the period between 2008 and 2012, by 243% between 2012 and 2016 and by some 137% between 2016 and 2020.
“Mr. Speaker, this reinforces the fact that the Akufo-Addo and the NPP Government are simply better managers of the economy and better protectors of the public purse,” he remarked.
