Ghanaian Chartered Accountant, Mr. Seth Terkper has insisted that the measures of government announced by Finance Minister, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta to address the economic challenges of the country are insufficient.
According to the former Finance Minister, the measures will not even address Ghana’s economic woes in the short term.
“I do not think we have addressed sufficiently the short-term problems that we have. What are those problems? First of all, the budget is tight, the revenue is covering two items and is still not enough – compensation and interest,” Seth Terkper told TV3 in an interview.
He continued, “That means that every single item including parts of the interest and compensation on wages is being financed from loans. That includes recurrent expenditure, it includes capital expenditure, it includes arrears which we have just been told is about 5 per cent of GDP from authoritative source that is the World Bank, and it includes repayment of past loans that we have taken.”
Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta on Thursday, March 24, 2022, announced several measures that the government is introducing to restore the ailing economy on a healthy path.
Besides salary cuts, fuel coupons for political appointees and institution heads have been slashed by 50%.
The salary cuts alone are projected to save Ghana some GHS3.5 billion. Together with other expenditure cuts, the government is optimistic that it would turn around the fortunes of the challenged economy for the hardships being experienced by Ghanaians to be mitigated.
