Akufo-Addo government's biggest mistake is overborrowing – Stephen Adei

Economist, Stephen Adei has said overborrowing is one of the biggest mistakes of the Akufo-Addo government.

The former board chair of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) told journalists on the sidelines of the Signature Market Pre-launch campaign at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology that overborrowing exacerbated the economic crisis.

“I think the biggest mistake they made is that they borrowed beyond our capacity to service it," he said.

"If you are a country and you borrow beyond your capacity, you will be in trouble, of course, COVID-19 came in, and the Russia-Ukraine [war, too].

“But the reason why things got worse is because of these underlying mistakes they made and they must admit it", Prof Adei explained.

He added: "If not, they won’t be going to IMF."

"If you are a government and you go broke you re-negotiate with your debtors. I think the debt restructuring will go through”.

“We have to learn and not repeat our mistakes by going on a borrowing spree", he advised, noting: "We should become watchdogs".

"The leakages should be reduced, the level of corruption, the wastage from the government after government is high, so, we don’t get value for money,” he stated.