Ghana's economy will soon return to 8% growth - Seth Terkper

Finance Minister Seth Terkper is confident that Ghana's ailing economy will return to spectacular growth in view of progressive policies and measures adopted by government.

He said there was every indication that this will happen sooner than later even though similar projections in the past haven't really materialised.

Mr. Terkper just finished an introspective look at the economy and concludes that discipline is non-negotiable if government is to meet the aspirations of its people.

"It is either we discipline ourselves or dissipate the opportunities that will arise when the economy shows any gain," the pilot of Ghana's economy said at a gathering in Accra Wednesday.

His conclusions came at a presentation of the state of the economy where the minister shared some lessons learnt after Ghana’s promising economic flight was shot down in 2013.

Huge budget deficits gutted important macroeconomic gains, Seth Terpker recognized.

Once in a ditch, Ghana’s economic rescue ropes snapped after falls in the prices of gold, cocoa and crude oil for over a year.

If these were outside the control of government, its expenditure wasn’t and budget over-runs deepened Ghana’s woes, some economic analysts have said.

The picture got grimmer when the nation got darker because the careless activity of a pirate ship clipped the gas pipeline in Togo’s waters, the minister explained.

Ghana, he said suffered “two-year disruption of gas supply” and two years of “shifting” excuses from managers of the gas pipeline, Nigeria until a government suffering from limited cash-flows now needed more than ever to import light crude oil to power the nation.

In 2013 and 2014, there is no money to pay all statutory obligations, a technical term for a situation where government owed hospitals, contractors, MPs' common fund among a tall list of debts.

According to Seth Terkper, in these trying times, government adopted some home grown policies which are basically what the IMF agreed with government on and accepted to grant a $1 billion rescue package to Ghana.

Story by Ghana|myjoyonline.com|Edwin Appiah|[email protected]