An ex-Finance Minister, Seth Terkper claims Ghana’s international reputation is eroding owing to constant attribution of problems to the COVID-19 epidemic and the Russian–Ukraine War.
President Nana Akufo-Addo recently spoke to the BBC, defending the health of the Ghanaian economy.
During the conversation, President Nana Akufo-Addo mentioned the COVID-19 epidemic and the Russian-Ukrainian War.
The President claims that the impacts of the two major events are felt globally.
In an interview with Citi Business News, Mr. Terkper said the world is increasingly skeptical of Ghana’s use of COVID-19 to explain its problems.
“I believe the world is beginning to doubt Ghana’s use of COVID to explain its issues. The World Bank recently said Ghana, for example, has arrears of over 5% of GDP, which is huge. If our GDP was GH350 billion at the time, 5% would be GH17 billion, yet the budget shows a deficit of GH3 billion. So continuing to blame COVID and claiming everything was good despite other’s recommendations increases the trust gap.”
Mr. Terkper, meanwhile, advocated for a strong domestic agenda to help the nation.
“Ghana is not an island, thus the Ukraine conflict has impacted us. That’s almost GH36 billion, which is about half of what GRA took in. So why do we keep blaming COVID? We speak about the COVID costs and the government’s expenditures, but what about the revenue? Didn’t the income cover the costs? Why do we usually focus on expenses and ignore revenue?”
What is truly wrong that despite all the stability fund income of $6 billion for COVID, we are still worse than other African countries? He said, “We are arguing that our tale is becoming incredible and that we need a sound program to bring us out of this mess.”
