Gov’t targets 8% growth rate next year

President John Mahama has once again assured the nation that the economy will recover after it increased revenues and took tough measures to limit public sector wages and spending.

Some of the measures were taken as part of the programme with the International Monetary Fund.

According to President Mahama, the economy is getting back on the path of growth as a result of a sustainable home-grown policy that has been adopted by the government.

With the current trend, the President explained that the World Bank had projected a growth rate of between seven and eight per cent in the next two to three years.

"We were faced with a very unbalanced economy and we have taken bold measures .... All the macroeconomic indicators are pointing in the right direction," Mahama said, adding that growth would rise above 8 percent in 2017 from a projected 4.1 percent this year.

He made the pronouncement at the maiden Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) Presidential Debate in Accra.

The country’s exports gold, oil and cocoa but has suffered from a slump in global commodity prices and macro-economic instability in the form of inflation that stood at 15.8 percent last month, an elevated budget deficit and high unemployment.

Similarly, Finance Minister, Seth Terkper, has said that the main propeller of growth next year will be the oil and gas sector with the Jubilee oil field expected to take center stage.

Oil production in Ghana’s first oil field, Jubilee, was pegged at over 90,000 barrels per day when running optimum level but technical hitches have since prohibited the field from achieving full production capacity.

In spite of Mr. Terkper’s optimism, he admitted that the decline in the crude oil prices has led to the country realising a deceleration in the sector, a situation which is likely to affect production from the Tweneboah-Enyerra-Ntomme (TEN) fields and the Sankofa Fields.