Former president John Dramani Mahama says government’s reckless borrowing has burdened the country with debt.
Speaking at the State of the Economy Forum organized by NDC pro-forum on Monday, 6 September 2021, Mr Mahama said the habit of paying off debts with taxes and then introducing new taxes to make up for it contributes to the rising cost of living in the country.
He further accused the government of hiding behind the Coronavirus pandemic to spend huge monies on the 2020 general elections.
He said the country has been plunged into economic crisis despite the government receiving monetary benefits from the oil revenue and donor partners.
“COVID19 only became a pretext for reckless election related spending, which produced the largest ever budget deficit in the recent economic history of Ghana last year. Our debt has ballooned to unsustainable levels – topping 80% of GDP – exposing us to very high risk of debt default,” Mr Mahama bemoaned.
“Almost all of our tax revenue is used to service our debt and the effect has been the introduction of several new taxes. This has led to rampant increments in the prices of goods and services. This is primarily responsible for the hardships Ghanaians are going through now.”
Source: GhanaFeed.com