Ghana is back to where we were almost twenty years ago because we are incorrigible, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has stated.
According to Dr. John Kwakye, the lead researcher at IEA the current economic problems is due to the government’s indiscipline in managing the country’s economy.
In IEA’s paper on Institutionalizing Fiscal Discipline and Macroeconomic Stability for Sustained Growth in Ghana: The Constitutional Pathway which was authored by Dr. Kwakye, it was noted that the country’s fiscal deficits tend to intensify in elections years than other African countries.
“Our deficits tend to escalate in election years when we elevate election-related spending,’’ the paper sighted by 1Family Radio indicated.
The paper furthered that after every election year, the country has to borrow huge sum of money to finance the deficits which causes our debt level to become unsustainable.
“We then borrow money to capitalize the deficits and cause our public debt to escalate to unsustainable levels. The country has been in this situation several times. Our debt reached its first crisis situation around 2004, when it ballooned to over 100% of GDP,’’ the paper stated.
He continued that currently, the country is where it used to be twenty years because of two major reasons. The first reason being our failure to learn from our past mistakes and secondly, our political leaders inability to accept faults.
“We are back to where we were almost twenty years ago because we do not seem to learn from our mistakes. Our two leading parties keep on blaming each other about who has escalated the debt the most.”
Mr. Kwakye however noted that it is not about who has increased or decreased the debt level of the country because the direction of the debt keeps moving upwards.
He further added that we have to the IMF seventeen times because of our continuous fiscal indiscipline which is associated with macroeconomic instability and debt crises.
Source: 1Familyradio
