Professor of Finance at the University of Ghana, Godfred Bokpin, says the country’s political leaders exploited the Covid-19 pandemic to worsen the economic challenges.

Professor Bokpin argued although Covid-19 caused harm to Ghana, the approach adopted in response to the pandemic led to the current economic difficulties.

Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile on July 27, he said, “If you look at what ID covid to Ghana, it is more of what Ghana did as a result of covid rather than what covid did. It is a clear case of Ghana taking advantage of the virus to mess up.”

“It is quite characteristic of Ghanaian politicians. In crisis moment, we take advantage. We saw what happened in the financial sector cleanup. The total cost at the end of the day vis-a –vis what we were trying to achieve.”

Prof Bokpin added that, the energy sector is a major concern for Ghana's fiscal stability.

"If you look at the energy sector shortfall, from now to 2026 is projected to reach approximately 98 billion cedis in the energy sector shortfall that the government has to  pay in order to keep the lights on."

He stated that although there has been some financial relief through domestic and external debt restructuring, the overall situation indicates that dealing with the core problems have only been postponed, making it clear that there’s still a long way to go.

“Even though we have created some space, very expensive, through domestic debt restructuring and external debt restructuring, the totality of it is that, we have actually pushed down the road and that’s why I’m saying it’s a long journey.”

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“If you look at the amount of debt this government has accumulated in the last seven and half years or so, and you look at the real asset, the underlining asset that we have generated, I don’t think we have been prudent. You can’t run away from that,” he said.