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President Akufo-Addo said on Tuesday that the country lost more than GH ¢ 13.5 billion in revenue in 2020 due to economic shocks induced by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In his State of the Nation address to Parliament, the President said that with additional spending, related to stemming the tide of Covid-19 estimated at GH ¢ 11.8 billion, the combined effect of the pandemic amounted to GH ¢ 25.3 billion or 6.6% of gross domestic product.
He said the resulting budget deficit for 2020 had therefore been revised from 4.7% of GDP to 11.4% of GDP to reflect the impact of the pandemic.
The president said the fiscal responsibility rule of keeping a deficit at a threshold of 5 percent of GDP and a positive primary balance for each year was suspended in 2020 to allow fiscal operations to adjust to the impact of the pandemic.
However, President Akufo-Addo said the government expects a revival of economic activities, which are already resuming, following the ongoing vaccination exercise and the easing of restrictions instituted to reduce the effects of disease on rapid economic growth.
“We expect gross domestic product growth to rebound strongly this year to almost 5%, above the IMF’s January 2021 projection of 3.2% for sub-Saharan Africa for 2021,” President Akufo said. -Addo.
He said the establishment of the National Development Bank, under the Ghana CARES program, would support Ghanaian businesses.
In addition, he said, the medium-term outlook, supported by the implementation of Ghana’s CARES program, was bright and expressed confidence that, together, “we will emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic with a stronger and more resilient economy.
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