Ghana is going through the most expensive economic recovery in history due to the sacrifices citizens had to make for that to happen, Prof. Godfred Alufar Bokpin of the UGBS, has intimated.
Recounting Ghana’s debt restructuring history, including the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative under President Kufuor, the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS) Professor says there has never been a time where citizens had to pay dearly for a restructuring.
Despite the country appearing to be having a recovery, Prof. Bokpin says the state of the economy is “very precarious”, adding that the Ghana’s traditional fiscal consolidation measures are no longer enough.
“What we are going through is the most expensive economic recovery in all our history since independence because of the price we had to pay to have this limited stability. Ghana, we’ve restructured our debts before.
“HIPC itself was a form of restructuring. It’s the first time we are restructuring our domestic debt in the magnitude we have seen. We are in a very precarious state even though we are talking about recovery,” he said on the KeyPoints on TV3 Saturday, October 26, 2024.
He explained further that “Ghana has gotten to the stage where the traditional fiscal consolidation measures, essentially revenue enhancements, and expenditure restraints that we’ve used over the years to correct imbalances are no longer enough. That’s why in the IMF programme, the Fund says that fiscal consolidation alone cannot generate debt sustainability.”
Development growth has gone beyond recording positive GDP – Prof. Bokpin
