Ghana not in a full-blown economic crisis yet - Bright Simons

Vice President of the think tank Imani Centre for Policy and Education ( Imani Africa) Bright Simons has asserted that though Ghana's economy faces a serious fiscal crisis, the economy is not in a full-blown economic crisis.

Bright Simons revealed that for his expertise in economic matters, there is no evidence of the country being in a complete economic crisis. stressing that Government still has a lot of legitimacy and their room for the Government to reverse the journey into an economic crisis.

“We are not yet at the level where we have a full blown economic crisis. But we can get there. A full-blown economic crisis, literally, as you said, we’d have been like Sri Lanka where you have people not being paid; shops running out of goods; and riots in the streets. Then you get a national security crisis where the President literally runs away from the Jubilee House. We’re not there. Ofull-blown objectively and evidently we are not there yet. So we have a lot of room still left. And there is also still a lot of legitimacy left of this Government,” he said on Joy FM’s Newsfile Saturday, January 21, 2022.

The Government in order to get an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout to help it deal with the balance of payments difficulties. It has engaged in a debt restructuring programme since it’s unable to meet its debt obligations. This programme, which includes a domestic debt exchange programme, has been met with rejection from individual bondholders who have demanded direct engagement with Government.

But Bright Simons is positive that Government is not wrecked totally and that the Government can deal with the challenges before the economy plunges into a full-blown crisis.