COVID-19 not only cause of fiscal gap – Seth Terkper
A former Minister of Finance and financial consultant, Mr. Seth Terkper, has said that the country’s fiscal gap has more to do with other factors than just the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There are underlining issues which we need to tackle. Claiming the gravity of COVID-19 and underplaying other stresses that the economy has gone through will not help,’ he said during a virtual media briefing on “Fiscal Review: Final Lap into the 2022 Budget” on Friday, August 13, 2021, organized by PFM Tax Africa Network.
According to Mr. Terpker, Ghana had an expansionary expenditure which it was not able to finance and so depended on loans.
“Then there is a deficit if you are not covering your regular expenditure and you borrow. Our expenditure in terms of interest and wage payments exceeds total revenue. We need to adapt our programme to control arrears, for revenue expenditure and bring in administration reforms among others,” he said.
He said Ghana, like all other economies, was susceptible to crisis and must prepare for it.
“We need to face the fact that our fiscal gap existed and we had shown previously about five to six percent before COVID came to three percent.
“There are underlining issues which we need to tackle. Claiming the gravity of COVID-19 and underplaying other stresses that the economy has gone through will not help,’ he said during a virtual media briefing on “Fiscal Review: Final Lap into the 2022 Budget” on Friday, August 13, 2021, organized by PFM Tax Africa Network.
According to Mr. Terpker, Ghana had an expansionary expenditure which it was not able to finance and so depended on loans.
“Then there is a deficit if you are not covering your regular expenditure and you borrow. Our expenditure in terms of interest and wage payments exceeds total revenue. We need to adapt our programme to control arrears, for revenue expenditure and bring in administration reforms among others,” he said.
He said Ghana, like all other economies, was susceptible to crisis and must prepare for it.
“We need to face the fact that our fiscal gap existed and we had shown previously about five to six percent before COVID came to three percent.
source:graphiconline
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