Ofori-Atta lied on Ghana’s debt – Adongo

The Member of Parliament for Bolga Central, Isaac Adongo, has accused the Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta of lying to Ghanaians on the country’s debt profile.

Ofori-Atta presenting the government’s 2018 budget statement and Economic policy Wednesday, November 15 disclosed the government through prudent management of the economy successfully reduced the country’s debt burden.

The reduction, he explained, was achieved as a result of a reduction in the fiscal deficit and a policy of debt re-profiling.

“Consequently,” he continued, “the debt to GDP ratio has declined from 73 percent at the end of December 2016 to 68.6 percent at the end of September 2017.”

He further explained that the annual average rate of debt accumulation of 36.0 percent over the last four years has declined over the last nine months to about 13.58 percent.

But speaking Friday on Morning Starr Mr. Adongo dismissed the figures presented to parliament by the Finance Minister as inaccurate.

According to him, the figures the Minister presented to parliament was the country’s debt as at June and that looking at the facts one will “find the Minister hiding the debts on the ground.”

He said the Finance Minister consciously avoided adding the debt the country incurred in July, August, October, November, and December to what he presented to parliament.

“So Ghana’s total debt for 2017 is the debt as at June? And you are comparing it with somebody whose debt includes six months more of debt that you have excluded from your figure. This is disingenuous,” Mr. Adongo told Morning Starr host Francis Abban.

According to Adongo, the 2018 budget is extremely deficient that he is certain it cannot be presented to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“The Minister of Finance should tell us the true state of the Ghanaian economy. In my view, the 2018 budget document is a useless one,” he stressed, adding “The Finance Minister does not know his debt to the end of the year and so how did he even know his deficit?”