John Kumah, a deputy minister of finance, has denied assertions that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government borrowed more money than any other administration in Ghana's history.
The Akufo-Addo government was borrowing at acceptable levels until Covid-19 struck and destroyed the successes and returns of those borrowing, making it difficult to now see the benefits, according to him. He claimed that current statistics and global events do not add up to make the government worse when it comes to borrowing.
People could believe that we have taken on too much debt as a result of what transpired, Mr. Kumah said. For investments in boosting the economy, we borrowed GH3 billion between 2017 and 2019, and we saw returns of 7%. We would not be in this situation since there would have been returns to pay off the loan if Covid-19 had not plummeted productivity to zero. It will look that you overborrowed, but at the time you were borrowing, you had no idea these terrible repercussions would occur if you made investments and they plummeted due to Covid-19 and external events.
Mr. Kumah expanded on his justification, saying that "our debt records are not the highest of any other Government. If you recall, Ghana's debt levels were GH9 billion and $8 billion in dollar equivalent in 2009, the year the National Democratic Congress (NDC) came to power. By the time they handed power over to us in 2017, however, the debt level had increased to GH123 billion, or roughly 1360 percent in terms of increment and percentage, and it was roughly $29 billion in dollars.
Further emphasizing, he said, "Our current debt level is about GH464 billion as of today and in terms of percentage, it is just about 300 percent so I don't see where people will say we have over-borrowed in the history of Ghana if someone grew it by 1360 percent and you have increased it by 300 percent."
He continued by saying that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) cannot be absolved of responsibility for the entire country's debt woes because "their borrowing is also part of our current debt because it is a continuous debt profile and secondly, they never experienced any major global catastrophe like the Covid-19 pandemic or the Russia-Ukraine war that we are currently experiencing.