Ghana's first budget statement under the country's new administration will be presented in the first week of March, Mr Yaw Osafo-Marfo, Finance Minister-designate, said on Tuesday.
"We are hoping that by the end of February, we'll have put everything together," Mr Osafo-Marfo, a banker and former UN economic consultant said. He was contributing to discussions on economic co-operation between President John Agyekum Kufuor and the Japanese Ambassador, Hiromu Nitta, at the State House in Accra.
The minister-designate painted an alarming picture of the state of the economy, saying the country's level of indebtedness is unusual and worrying. "We have a situation where our internal debt is about six trillion cedis representing 20 per cent of GDP." He said the situation, for now, leaves no choice for the President than to seek debt relief from donors.
This, he said, has been running in the President's statements since his inauguration on December 7. However, it does not mean that government has declared Ghana a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC).
"We are just making a general appeal for debt relief to support our budget in order to carry on." Government, he said, is carefully examining the crucial issue of whether Ghana falls into the HIPC initiative and would announce its findings soon.
Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku, minister-designate for Trade and Industry, buttressed the appeal to Japan to "give Ghana a new lease of life," by releasing outstanding grants to the government.
