President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has elevated the Minister of State at the Finance Ministry Dr Mohammed Amin Adam to the position of the substantive Finance Minister, replacing Mr Ken Ofori-Atta.
This was announced by the Director of Communications at the presidency Mr Eugene Arhin on Wednesday, February 14.
Dr Amin Adam’s appointment comes at a time when the country has been saddled with economic challenges.
The challenges include the poor performance of the local currency, the Cedi, against the major trading ones, especially the Dollar.
He is expected to tackle the relationship between the Cedi and the Dollar.
The other issue he will be faced with is fiscal discipline or indiscipline on the part of the government.
Some analysts believe that the government has performed poorly when it comes to fiscal discipline.
For instance, a lecturer at the University of Ghana Dr Kwame Asah-Asante said while reacting to the address by the Head of the Economic Management Team, Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia on Wednesday, February 7 “Let us take fiscal discipline, you will realize that this has been the bane of this country, governments, particularly, this government has failed miserably and this is one of the reasons that has pushed us to IMF for an economic bailout.”
The third issue Dr Amin Adam is expected to face is the debt situation of the country.
Analysts also revealed that public debt exceeded 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), with debt servicing accounting for more than half of total government revenues and almost 70 percent of tax revenues.
The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development states that Ghana’s economic growth is subject to huge fluctuations: in the past years, growth has ranged from 0.9 percent (in 2020) to 14 percent (in 2011). Then, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy shrunk massively in 2020, picking up only slowly in 2021 and 2022. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is predicting economic growth of just 1.2 per cent for 2023.
However, Ghana is faced with a debt crisis, this limits the government’s room for maneuver.
The fourth point is the high inflation. The Government Statistician Professor Samuel Annim announced that the inflation rate for December 2023 dropped to 23.2 percent from the 26.4 percent recorded in November. Although the rate had been declining, analysts including the Director of the Institute for Statistical, and Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana, Professor Peter Quartey said it is still high.
The 5th point will be a successful completion of the programme with the International Monetary (IMF.).
In May 2023, the IMF Executive Board approved an Extended Credit Facility arrangement of roughly three billion US dollars.
Two tranches of $600million each, have since been received by the Government.
Dr Amin Adam will oversee the successful completion of the three-year program with the Fund.
