Ballooning debt stock a source of concern- Economist
Chief executive officer of the Institute of Charted Economist (ICE), Mr. Gideon Amissah has warned the Central Bank about the soaring rate of the county’s public debt stock.
According to him, the rate of growth of the piling debts stock should be a source of great concern to the Bank of Ghana.
Speaking in an interview with Accra based Starr FM on Starr Today, the CEO bemoaned how fast our debts is increasing.
“I think it should be a source of great concern, reason been the rate of growth of the debt stock where we had to start the year with around 170 billion and now we are moving to 200 billion cedis and you also look at the figures from March we were around 180,190,198 and now we move to 200 billion” he queried.
“The rate of growth alone is something we should be worried about” he emphasized.
He also says, it reflects in the debt to GDP ratio where last month the report we had was 57% but now we are around 58% of GDP and that is also an ascending trend which is worrying.
The CEO of I.C.E stressed that the only remedy as at now is to find ways of raising revenues in order to cushion the hemorrhaging national coffers.
“What this leaves us is a possible tax elevation from policy makers in order to make up for revenue shortfalls and cater for deficits swelling the debt stock.” He concluded.
Background
Ghana’s public debt stock has soared to GH¢ 200 billion this was made known by the governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr. Ernest Addison, on Friday July 19, 2019, during a press conference in Accra.
According to the latest summary of economic data released by the Central bank, government borrowed GH 2billion cedis alone last month.
He noted that the country’s debt stock increased from GH¢ 198.4 billion in April 2019 to GH¢ 200 billion in May 2019.