Government borrowing from central bank is the best option for a post-Covid-19 economic revival – Economist

An Economist and Research Fellow at the Institute for Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) says government’s borrowing of ¢10 billion from the Bank of Ghana is the best option for a post-Covid-19 economic revival.

Dr Ackah says government needs to raise monies especially to support businesses affected by the pandemic, but they cannot create a debt crisis in the process.

“I’m happy that the central bank had to step in with the ¢10 billion support. That’s about $2 million. It’s better for us to fund the money from the central bank than to go to IMF to borrow and then we have conditionalities that also will worsen the recession.”

Speaking at a National Economic Webinar discussing how to bring back the economy post the pandemic, Dr. Ackah said it was time to analyse the various economic theories to find which will best fit the situation the country is facing.

“We need to sit down and also look at the economic theories that we have been following for all these years and question them, whether they are sustainable and sensible given the situation that we find ourselves in.”

The ¢10 billion from the bank of Ghana came with no conditionalities. According to the Economist, this was so because the fund could not be sourced from the private sector as the country is facing an economic crisis.

He explained that this does not mean the country isn’t in debt rather, “still you are indebted, it’s still not the best because it is still foreign dominated. So which means that we need to repay, it is not free and we need to look for dollars to repay.

“After the crisis we’ll be faced with a debt situation and then our debt to GDP will go up and then we’ll need to look for cedis to turn them into dollars and pay to have impact on our currency going forward.”

The Webinar was organized by Advocates for Christ and hosted by Daniel Dadzie.