Ghana's huge debts break our hearts - Minority MPs

Ahead of the presentation of government’s budget statement in Parliament, Deputy Minority Leader, Dominic Nitiwul has indicated that irrespective of the contents of the document, the rising public debt remained the major concern of Ghanaians.

“It is cardinal that every Ghanaian should be concerned about the rising public debt…if you have a debt that has been moved from GHc9.5bn to GHc33.5bn, people should be worried…we are sure the government will be giving answers to it.”

Speaking on Citi FM, Hon Nitiwul called on government to device means by which it will manage public debts and decrease excessive borrowing.

“We should look at how we can manage our public debts and not pride ourselves that we have the capacity to borrow again like the president said… the people, the economy and businessmen are getting worried”

The Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Finance, Hon James Avedzi on his part said he was optimistic that the budget would propose ways by which government intended to widen avenues for tax revenue collection.

This, according to him “can prevent the annual canker of the budget deficit.”

“What I expect the government to do is to ensure that people who are earning income [revenue] and are not paying the appropriate taxes should be fished out and be made to pay their taxes. We have to implement the tax law which will ensure anybody who earn income; any income that is received must be made to pay tax; once we bring all persons on board we will increase the tax revenue.”

According to Hon. Avedzi, though government was managing the economy well, something had to be done about the budget deficit which was caused by the subsidy on petroleum products, the implementation of the single spine salary structure amongst other factors.

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in February revealed that the 2012 budget deficit provisionally estimated at 8.7 billion Ghana cedis amounting to 12.1% of GDP using the rebased GDP numbers (or some 20% of GDP in terms of the old GDP series), was the highest recorded budget deficit in Ghana’s history, indicating that the budget deficit of 2012 was almost double the budget deficit of 2008.