Gov't Committed To Addressing Fiscal Challenges - Seth Terkper

As the nation fishes out ways to address the country�s economic challenges, a four day non-partisan National Economic Forum has commenced. The forum aims at achieving consensus on policies, strategies and measures for Ghana�s transition from a lower middle income nation to an upper middle income economy. Peacefmonline.com brings you some highlights of what the Finance Minister, Mr. Seth Terkper touched on. As one of the key speakers selected to address the forum, the Minister for Finance made it clear during his submission that Ghana was no longer enjoying fiscal space from debt relief after declaring HIPC like she did before. Fiscal policy implementation, according to him suffered some setbacks in 2012 as the budget deficit widened to 11.5% on account of several factors. He added that since 2013, the ruling government has rolled out bold decisions to improve the fiscal situation. Aside this measure, awarding of new contracts has been limited. The minister also revealed that escrows and lending for commercially viable projects have been adopted as recovery schemes when it comes to debt management measures. In 2013, Mr. Terkper noted that adverse global and domestic development posed as challenges to economic management. �Key commodities saw price declines on the international market, giving rise to a worsened external sector performance and revenue shortfalls�, he said. In his conclusion remarks, he stated that government is committed to addressing fiscal challenges to ensure macroeconomic stability. He was also certain that 2016, Ghana would see a turnaround in its economy.