Ghana Is On Course To Declaring Bankruptcy – Mahama

Former President John Dramani Mahama has stated that the Akufo-Addo led administration is on course to leading Ghana to declare bankruptcy if the current economic trends persist.

According to Mahama, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia after promising to reduce borrowing, have succeeded in borrowing more than all the governments Ghana has had put together.

The former president added that the main reason Ghana was on this trajectory is because of the mismanagement of this government despite the resources at its disposal.

“At the last reckoning, over GH¢ 500 billion had been available to them (government) through taxes, grants, borrowing and other sources of revenue. No government in our recent history has been that fortunate.

“Despite this fortune, today, the Ghanaian economy ranks among the worst managed in the world. It is characterized by unsustainable public debt due to an unprecedented fiscal deficit, comparatively high and still rising inflation, a rapidly depreciating currency, spiraling cost of doing business, ever rising cost of living, high levels of corruption, abuse of civil and human liberties, and a general loss of investor confidence. Simply put, our country is on the verge of bankruptcy.

“In spite of the firm promise to reduce borrowing, this government has increased our public debt to almost GH¢ 380 billion as of the end of the first quarter of 2022. This is more than three times the debt of all governments since the days of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah up to January 2017,” he said during his speech at the ‘Ghana at a Crossroads’ programme organized by the NDC to give Ghanaians a picture of the current state of the Nation.

He further stated that because of the huge amount of money borrowed by the NPP government in the last five years Ghana’s debt has increased by more than 500 percent, from GH¢10 billion in 2016 to about GH¢50 billion currently.

Mahama added that the most problematic issue with this government’s borrowing is that there is nothing to show for all the monies it has borrowed because almost all the funds go into consumption expenditure rather than capital expenditure which will help address the nation’s infrastructure deficit.