We have not borrowed more than 80 billion gh – Info Minister

The administration of President Akufo-Addo has denied having borrowed 80 billion Gh in two and a half years, as claimed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Parliament.

It will be remembered that the minority in Parliament recently accused the administration of the new Patriotic Party (NPP) of borrowing 80 billion Ghc and not having concrete infrastructure projects to demonstrate.

But the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, addressed reporters on Friday, June 7, 2019 in Accra, describing the minority's complaint as a "manifest lie" that one should not take seriously.

According to him, the Ghanaian financial market was not liquid to raise 80 billion Gh in two and a half years.

He explained that "even if you say that 80 billion Gh has been borrowed in two and a half years, the market has what it takes to raise 80 billion Gh in two and a half years. The answer is no."

The minister said: "With regard to foreign loans, all these loans are approved by Parliament in accordance with Article 181 of the 1992 Constitution and Articles 55, 56 and 57 of the Law on the Management of Foreign Loans. public finances, the 921 law for which the minority left and you can add all the loans that this administration has contracted to Parliament and this will in no case approaching nearly 80 billion dinars. "

He said that "in fact, if there is a list of loans amounting to 80 billion guilders, you would imagine that the minority would have already published it. But the reason our stock of debt today would show a difference of about 80 billion Ghc is that it is a nominal figure of the public debt. "

According to Mr. Oppong Nkrumah, "and the amount of public debt is made up of a number of things. First, the old loans that are currently disbursed under this administration's mandate are added to the public debt stock. This does not mean that the administration has gone to borrow money. "

He added, "And I will give you an example. If you take, for example, the railway works between Tema and Mpakadan, which are funded by an Indian EXIM facility, every new dollar that they release is added to our debt stock. Did the Akufo-Addo borrow this money? No!"

He pointed out that "you can not therefore look at the growth of the outstanding debt and say that the administration has borrowed money".

He also blamed the exchange rate change on the growth of the outstanding debt. "Third, you will notice that since 2017, we have had several extraordinary events that the administration had to borrow specifically to deal with."

According to the Minister of Information, "The rescue of the financial services sector alone has already cost us some 12 billion Ghc and if you add what remains to be done, the figure could even increase, a little higher than that. "

"So who supervised this exercise? This does not necessarily mean that the government has gone to borrow money and must therefore show infrastructure projects to that effect. "

He recalled that during the IMF program, the Ghanaian government could not borrow more than 500 million dollars a year.

He also said the budget limited the amount the government could borrow in the form of commercial loans and that it was about $ 500 million to $ 700 million.

— Daily guide