Akufo-Addo has put the country into more debt – Sammy Gyamfi.

Sammy Gyamfi, the National Communications Officer of NDC, said that the NPP did not honor their promises of lowering the government borrowing and improving the sustainability position of the country’s debt. Gyamfi stated this on Wednesday, October 28, during a press conference in Accra.

The national communications officer insisted that when NPP made the promise in 2016, the public debt was at GHS120 billion, and the debt to GDP ratio at 55.6%. “But what do we see today? Our Public debt which stood at GHS120 billion as of December 2016, has ballooned to GHS258.8 billion, as of June 2020. Also, our debt to GDP ratio which stood at 55.6% as of December 2016, has increased to 68.3% and projected by the IMF to hit 76.7% by December this year,” Sammy Gyamfi stated.

“What this means is that President Akufo-Addo has added more debt, that is, a whopping GHS138 billion and still counting, to Ghana’s Public debt in only three (3) and half years. This is far more than any government has done in the history of this country, and far more than all successive governments since independence, have cumulatively added to the country’s Public debt. In fact, per our current total Public debt of GHS258.8 billion that is as at June 2020, every Ghanaian in Ghana today is indebted to the tune of about GHS10,000” Sammy stated this in addition.

He insisted that as a result of this debt more than 90% of the domestic revenue is spent on debt servicing. The domestic revenue from January 2020 to June 2020, was at GHS21,682,896,236 according to the 2020 mid-year budget review statement. GHS19,599,639,701, which is 90.4% of domestic revenue, was used for debt servicing alone within the six months. This indicates that Ghana’s ever-rising Public debt and its attendant high debt servicing amount, has so deteriorated the country’s fiscal space. These days after servicing the country’s debts, a small amount of revenue is left and the government has to borrow for Compensation, Goods & Services, and Capital Expenditure (CAPEX).

“So bad is our current debt position. Our finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, at the virtual plenary session of the Development Committee (DC) of the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) last Friday, pleaded for debt forgiveness for the country.”