Restructuring, rescheduling of interest payments panacea to revenue mobilisation challenges – Kwakye Ofosu

A spokesperson for the National Democratic Congress' John Dramani Mahama has advised the government to restructure Ghana’s debt to reschedule interest payments for some time to address revenue mobilization challenges.

According to Felix Kwakye Ofosu, a larger chunk of the country’s gains is spent servicing debts, paying public sector wages, and making statutory payments which need to be controlled to help save the country’s finances.

Information provided by the Ministry of Information indicates that public debt has risen to a total of GH₵351.8 billion, the equivalent of US$46.7 billion.

Mr. Mahama during his presentation on “Ghana at crossroads” public lecture on Monday, May 2, 2022, in Accra, said the annual debt services cost has risen to GH₵50 billion since 2016.

This Mr. Ofosu Kwakye believes could be saved if the government would be able to adjust the time frames within which interests are paid.

“We need to restructure our dept so that we reschedule interest payment for some time, so that the 50 billion we would have paid, we can keep a financing government’s expenditure, and this expenditure must be priority expenditure that is essential and beneficial, not wasteful expenditure…”

With such action taken, he noted, the government would not have to “impose further taxation because the taxation also has a toll on people there is only so much that people can pay”.

Mr. Ofosu Kwakye spoke in an interview granted 3FM, monitored by Angelonline.com.gh.

He was responding to a question of whether or not, the repealing of the electronic transaction levy as Mr. Mahama has hinted doing would negatively affect the revenue generation targets of the government when the NDC forms government in 2024.