Deputy Minister for Finance, Dr John Kumah says the Finance Minister’s ‘turned the corner’ comment during the mid-year budget review does not mean Ghana’s economic woes have been resolved entirely.

Speaking on Newsfile, he stated that contrary to popular claims, the term was used by the minister to indicate that the government was on the right path to resolving Ghana’s problems.

Opening up on the indicators to prove the country has made progress, Dr Kumah said “in just December, the fuel cost was about GHS24. Today, as we speak, it's about GHS12. Also, the exchange rate, we know that it got to a time it shot to about GHS15 in November/ December 2022. Today, as we speak, we are hovering around GHS10.7 to GHS11.”

“This means at least we have seen a certain level of stability on the exchange rate front as well. And then also on the inflation, clearly, we were at 54%, we've tumbled down to 42.5%. Parliament recently passed some new revenue measures in the budget, which also got reflected somewhere in May. So some of the impacts of the new measures from the taxes also have an impact on the inflation levels that we are seeing.”

Dr Kumah stated that comparatively the data available and indicators show Ghana is heading towards the right direction. He noted that as such, the term used does not connote that the country has fully recovered.

“Turning the corner doesn't mean that way. It just means that we are very optimistic. We have confidence in the measures that we have outlined so far. And we are very confident that by the end of the year, Ghanaians are going to have a better story to tell about the economy,” he said.

The Deputy Finance Minister added that “we should continue to trust in the government and have confidence that the measures we are putting in place will help us recover better and faster as expected.”