Minister of Finance Kenneth Nana Yaw Ofori-Atta has admitted that the country is facing economic challenges due to the high expenditure which characterised the 2020 financial year.
He told legislators on Wednesday, November 17 that the country recorded a total budget deficit of 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020.
As a result, he stressed, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is not losing sleep to ensure that the economy returns to pre-Covid-19 levels.
“Mr. Speaker, we are under no illusions as to the economic challenges facing our country today,” he said in his delivery of the 2022 budget statement and government’s economic policy.
“How to ease the sufferings of Ghanaians, transform the economy to create jobs and share the expected wealth across all households, such as providing security and education are what keep the President awake at night. How to broaden the revenue base, keep a grip on expenditure, protect the public purse and at the same time build with urgency the needed infrastructure, collecting revenue, managing our debt and expenditure commitments, and paying the bills to stimulate economic activity are the orders he has given to us, his Ministers and other appointees, to carry out over the next three years.”
He assured that they will steer the economy back to stable waters just like the President had stated in the height of the deadly pandemic.
“Mr. Speaker, we have no doubt in our capacity as a government to turn things around,” he promised.
“We turned around the economic crisis we inherited in 2017. We are turning around the economic crisis the pandemic brought in 2020. The challenge is on and we are determined to prevail and with the people behind us and the Almighty on our side we know we shall prevail.”
By Emmanuel Kwame Amoh|editors.3news.com|Ghana
