Gov't is living within its means – Seth Terkper

Finance Minister Seth Terkper says the government has tamed its taste for spending money it does not have.

He said the Budget deficit which reached historic levels of 12 per cent of GDP in 2012, has been cut significantly.

“The government is living within its means,” he told Parliament Monday, July 25, 2016, whilst presenting the supplementary budget to the House.

He said despite a slight overrun of 182.6 million cedis on wage bill, “general expenditures are being contained to take account of the likely shortfalls in oil revenues.”

Citing provisional data for January to May this year, the Finance Minister said, “the cash fiscal deficit was 2.5% of GDP against a 2.2% target.”

These figures, he said, compared favourably with the same period last year.

“The practical meaning of the annual decline in [budget] deficit is that government is living within its means,” he said.

Mr. Terkper told Parliament that this is buoyed by the fact that government is borrowing less from banks, thereby reducing pressure on interest rates.

The government has been heavily criticized for what the critics call reckless borrowing over the last few years.

The high level of borrowing, it has been suggested, imposed a heavy debt burden on the country.

At one point, the International Monetary Fund classified Ghana as a high risk, debt distressed country.

The Finance Minister said the government has minimized the rate of borrowing and achieved the slowed rate of accumulating debt since the country returned from HIPC.

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Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Malik Abass Daabu (Twitter @MalikDaabu)