Leader of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Caucus in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu, says the country’s economy is simply not doing well as the Akufo-Addo government paint the picture to be.

According to him, the economy is on the brink of collapse due to the crippling debt the country finds itself in.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express on Monday, the Tamale South MP said the country spends more money servicing debts against investing in state infrastructure and policies geared towards improving the lives of Ghanaians.

This, he said, is never reflected in the commentaries made by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta and Vice President, Mahmudu Bawumia, on the state of the economy.

“…If you guys took a minute, this is the only economy today, superior economic management, if you listen to Dr. Bawumia and Ken Ofori-Attta, that I’ve even heard Ken Ofori-Atta say that we should be interested in looking at how much each government has borrowed in percentage terms. That’s deceptive economics.

“He must be sharing with the Ghanaian people how much he spends to service debt. If its 5.3% of GDP that is higher than what existed at probably the end of 2016 and he must be concerned about that. What percentage of that is total revenue, we must be concerned about that,” he said.

He added that the Finance Minister has also failed in producing a policy to guide the rebound of the economy following it’s recession as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to him, “All the receivables have been mortgaged. You have an economy where today GETFund has 1.5 billion of some loan of a sort, you’ll have for instance even Ghana EXIM which was set up by the NDC and John Mahama to improve export financing. Ordinarily, no good economist’s worth of any standing will borrow against Ghana’s debt.”

Haruna Iddrisu said the country’s inflating debt could be detrimental to Ghana’s burgeoning economy.

“You think when you have debt ballooning, private sector will be interested in investing that economy?” he said.

Currently, Ghana’s debt stock is at ¢291.6 billion as of December 2020. This represents 76.1% of GDP.

Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister and Leader of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Caucus in Parliament, disclosed this while he read the 2021 budget statement on the Floor of the House, March 12, 2021.