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General News on Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Source: clbadfmonline.com
2019-06-11
Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Minister of Information
Parliament's minorities and lies in the ongoing debate over public sector debt can not be sustained, said Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah.
According to him, the minority seems "confused" about the difference between "the growth of outstanding debt and borrowing".
A former deputy minister, Cbadiel Ato Forson, said Tuesday that the Mahama government had left a public debt of 120 billion GHS, not 122 billion GHS, as claimed by some communicators of the ruling party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in power.
The Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam MP told reporters at a press conference that the government is using the 2017 exchange rate to calculate the debt incurred in 2016, a situation that he, feels the injustice.
The legislator revealed that the central bank had correctly entered the correct numbers on its website, but that the Ministry of Finance had not done so.
He also invited Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta to rectify this mistake.
"The nuclear power plant says that the NDC has left a public debt of 122 billion GHS. In fact, it is not true. This is not true because the actual debt left by the NDC was 120 billion GHS, "he said.
"The NPP decided to use different exchange rates for the accounting of our external debts. In fact, since we left our position in December 2016, they should use the rates as of December 31, 2016 and not March 30, 2017.
"In fact, they decided to use the March numbers to change these figures and give the impression that the NDC left a public debt of 122 billion GHS instead of 120 billion GHS.
"There is an addition of 2 billion GHS that the Auditor General, in his report to Parliament, has pointed out to the government that what he is doing is misleading and that it does not represent good budget figures.
"I also noted that the Bank of Ghana understood this well, but not the Ministry of Finance. The Minister of Finance should do what is honorable and fix those problems. "
In response to the minority's comments, Oppong Nkrumah, currently on an international mission in Guinea, said in a statement to the press: "It is very unfortunate that the minority led by Ato Forson seems confused between a growth in indebtedness and borrowing ".
"If they [Minority] Be careful, they will realize that we have not said that the stock of debt has not changed. What we have said is that if we say that a change in the outstanding debt of 80 billion GHS means that the administration has borrowed 80 billion GHS, it shows that this person does not understand not how the national accounts are done. "
He added, "As we have explained, there are up to five reasons why the stock of debt has changed. The first is the fact that they have taken out old loans, some of which are currently disbursed.
"All of these new disbursements add to the stock of debt and we have cited some examples. The Tema-Mpakadan railway is an example, which the new disbursement adds to our current debt stock. If you take the East University to Somanya, new disbursements will add to our debt stock today.
"Secondly, we mentioned the fact that the exchange rate differential also adds to our stock of debt. So if I had a billion dollars at the SGH4 for a dollar, all I had was 4 billion GHS. If the exchange rate goes to GH5 today, the stock of debt will change, it does not mean that the administration has borrowed, "he said.
Number three, continues Oppong Nkrumah, said: "We have also stated that some disbursements are not used by the central government but are all added to our debt. For example, the $ 1 billion that the former government made under the IMF, which was disbursed after every successful review by the Akufo-Addo administration, is in addition to our stock of debt, but that money does not reach the government. go to the Bank of Ghana for balance of payments support ".
"Number four: we also mentioned that in this growth of 80 billion GHS, you will see double counting. Especially for liability management, about a billion dollars of debt repayment representing about 5 billion GHS, which we borrowed another billion GHS pending, which will be used to repay. These two 5 billion items will reach the 10 billion GHS, so you will find that there is double counting.
"Before getting new loans from the new administration, which will not exceed $ 500 million under the IMF program, nor now the $ 750 million of the year 2019.
"So our argument is that when you see a change in the stock of debt, you can not say that they borrowed 80 billion GHS and that the fear, the falsity of the NDC minority can not be tolerated. "
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