GHc3bn of Ghana’s debt has been paid – Terkper

Finance Minister Seth Terkper has revealed that over three billion Cedis of the country’s total debt has been cleared over the last few weeks.

According to him, the payment of the debt will significantly reduce the pressure on government in the servicing of other existing loans and financial agreements.

The Central Bank recently revealed that the country’s public debt including both domestic and external debt hit 58.4billion cedis at end of March this year.

The leap was from the GH¢52.1 billion recorded at the end of December last year.

The new figure represents 55.4 percent of GDP.

Of the total, the domestic debt component was GH¢27.8 billion which is 47.5% of the overall total.

According to the Governor of the bank of Ghana Dr Henry Kofi Wampah, provisional data on government fiscal operations indicate lower than budgeted outturns for both revenues and expenditures for the period January to May 2014.

Total revenue and grants for the review period was GH¢9 billion making up 8.5% of GDP, this is below the target of GH¢9.5 billion which is 9% of GDP.

Total tax revenue amounted to GH¢7.1 billion, lower than the estimated GH¢7.3 billion.

Non-tax revenue outturn was almost in line with projected estimates at GH¢1.8 billion, driven mainly by oil revenues.

Grant disbursements remained low at GH¢79.4 million, against an estimated GH¢393.3 million.

According to Dr Henry Kofi Wampah ‘low import volumes, declines in international gold prices and production which affected mining sector corporate taxes and mineral royalties, and the general slowdown in economic activities’ accounted for the underperformance of government revenues during the first five months of the year.

Addressing the media on the State of the country’s economy Wednesday, Mr Tekper said the government is making great strides in the management of the economy but its efforts have been blurred by the power crisis that has hit the country.