Our economy is on slippery ground; stop blaming COVID-19 — Former Finance Minister

Seth Terkper, a former Finance Minister has criticized the current government for blaming Ghana's economic crisis on COVID-19, stating that the blame game should cease.

During a session at the PFMTax Africa media dialogue on Ghana's IMF program, Terkper indicated that Ghana gained $6billion during the covid-19 period.

He argued that continuing to attribute economic difficulties solely to the pandemic is not justifiable, especially when substantial revenue was generated during the same period.

"We blamed everything on COVID, but we had $6 billion coming in during the same pandemic. And I'm talking about American dollars," Terkper stated.

The former Finance Minister urged a shift in the evaluation of the country's economic performance, suggesting a shift from using the primary balance (which excludes net interest payments on public debt) as the sole indicator of economic well-being.

Instead, he proposed using the fiscal balance, which represents the difference between the government's revenues and expenditures, as a more comprehensive measure.

"We are on a slippery ground if we continue to use the primary balance as the basis of saying that the economy is doing well when we should have used the fiscal balance to be able to make a proper assessment.

“This is because the primary balance excludes interest payments on our public debts, which we all know is very huge now," Terkper explained.