A Private Legal Practitioner has warned that the tenure of President Akufo-Addo's leadership will end like the reign of Biblical king Nebuchadnezzar if his administration continue to exhibit the know-all and be-all tendencies when it comes to economic matters.
According to Lawyer Edudzi Tamakloe, it is important the Akufo-Addo administration shed away its arrogance posture and humble themselves by seeking financial support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or other notable financial institutions and advice from other economic experts since the economy has already taken a nose dive.
Speaking on Okay FM's Ade Akye Abia programme, Lawyer Tamakloe, a one-time Special Aide to former president John Dramani Mahama, cited a recent Bloomberg report to back his assertions and pointed out that all the financial indicators are pointing at negative zero outlook for the economy if the government does not decide to seek outside help.
"The Bloomberg report shows Ghana’s debt is moving deeper into distress as investors lose patience.
"It added that the country’s dollar bonds have slumped 10% in 10 days, moving deeper into distressed territory as investors judge that re-financing debt in the Eurobond market won’t be an option when the Federal Reserve hikes rates and budget targets remain elusive. So with this report and other report from Fitch and reuters, why won't you seek support to cushion Ghanaians and the economy?
"If you continue to behave like this and not seek financial assistance, the calamity of the biblical King Nebuchadnezzar will befall you and your government. So I will plead with the vice president and the finance minister to seek support and financial assistance and not be overtaken with pride and arrogance which will eventually cause the downfall of this confused NPP government," he added.
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Economic fundamental strong - Finance Ministry.
The government has said the country’s economic fundamentals are strong, and that measures are in place to achieve revenue targets for this year.
In a statement, the Ministry of Finance said the strength of the economy was hinged on growth in the third quarter of last year, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) exceeding its revenue mobilisation target for the year and the country’s strong reserves position.
The GRA, which is mostly in charge of domestic revenue mobilisation, exceeded its target by GH¢265.39 million or 0.5 per cent.
Inaccuracies
Reacting to some media reports purporting that the economy is in distress, the Ministry of Finance said there were some serious factual errors in the publications, which might give investors some cause for concern if not corrected.
"For example, Bloomberg stated 81.5 per cent as end-of-year debt-to-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio. This is incorrect. Our provisional nominal debt-to- GDP, as of the end of November 2021 was 78.4 per cent, which is the latest data available.
“December revenue collections are seasonally the largest for any year and it is unlikely that our financing requirements in December will result in us exceeding 80 per cent debt-to-GDP by December 2021," it said.
There were also wrong historical debt-to-GDP figures.
The ministry said Ghana’s debt-to-GDP figures a decade ago were 39.67 and 47.80 per cent for 2011 and 2012, respectively, and not 31.4 per cent, as stated in the publication.
Source: Isaac Kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline/[email protected]
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