Minister for Information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has stated that the New Patriotic Party (NPP)'s performance of debt management in the public sector is better than that of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration.
The Information Minister indicated that when the NPP administration took over in 2017, several measures including the enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, were put in place to check government spending.
“There are rules about borrowing that we ourselves have come to parliament to put in place that borrowing need not to be zero but it should not be more than 5 per cent of GDP, that is what we call the Fiscal Responsibility Act. This portrayed a government that was willing to ensure fiscal discipline.
"Because of Covid we have had to suspend it and we are now around 10 percent of GDP, you will see in this budget the fiscal part coming back down. We are bringing it down to about 7.9 percent. In the next budget may be about 6 percent and we will bring it back to 5 percent. It is evident that we are reducing the rate of debt accumulation, it is evident that we are reducing the deficit of 11 to about 5," he said.
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Speaking to TV3 ahead of the 2022 budget presentation on Wednesday November 17, the Ofoase Ayirebi MP said the debt figures and statistics do not favor the NDC administration in debt management performance.
"Even for that those who want to do politics, we can compare their about 9 billion cedis that the NDC inherited to the about 124 billion that they left. And compare the 124 billion of the NPP to the about 300 billion that we have now and strike the percentage and see who will be ore responsible when it comes to debt.
"But that kind of nominal comparison won't get us anywhere. Even if we choose to play that game we will play it better than our colleagues on the other side but that kind of game won't get us anywhere," he added.