Finance Minister rejects blame for economy's poor performance

The Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Mr. Seth Terkper, has said he cannot be blamed for the poor performance of Ghana's economy.

Speaking on Peace FM’s morning show ‘Kokrokoo’, the Minister said factors such as the fall in gold, crude oil and cocoa prices on the international market have accounted largely for the way the economy has performed.

He said “Excuse me to say that it is a bit simplistic [for people to say that it is my poor management of the economy that has brought us to where we are] because I didn’t cause gold prices to fall, I didn’t cause cocoa prices to fall, neither was I responsible for the pirate ship that broke pipeline and therefore disrupted the supply of gas into the economy, neither was my boss the president responsible for these things.”

He said governments are elected to manage in both good and bad times, therefore he or the government cannot be entirely blamed for the way the economy has performed.

Mr. Terkper indicated that regardless of the bad times, measures adopted by government to stabilise the economy and return to the path of growth have worked out and “I think that I would rather we looked at the measures whether it helped in reversing the trend.”

Government’s success with the Single Spine Pay Structure, its ability to stop the industrial strikes which rocked the nation last year and the bringing of labour and fair wages together to find a solution to the labour unrests are things that government should be commended for, he said.

He indicated that “If you look at subsides, the removal…when was the last time petrol queues formed in the country, that was June last year when there was a disruption otherwise you will have to go back to 2013 when it happened. I think that these are some of the concrete examples that you want to see.”

Although Ghana’s debt is almost È»100 billion – È»59.9 billion being external and 40.9 billion domestic – Mr Terkper said the rate at which the debt is being increased has slowed significantly.

This figure represents about 71.3 percent of Ghana's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

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