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The Public Financial Management Act (ACT 921) of 2016 would be amended by the next NDC government, according to former president John Dramani Mahama, to place a limit on the amount of money the nation may borrow from foreign creditors.
During his campaign tour in the Greater Region, the NDC flagbearer said at a community engagement at Dodowa in the Shani Osu Doku constituency that the move is to guarantee budgetary discipline, accountability, and judicious management of public finances.
According to Mr. Mahama, the finance ministry’s debt management division would become an independent organization tasked with providing quarterly updates to the public on debt-to-GDP ratios.
He said that the NPP government’s ability to go on a borrowing binge was due to their lack of transparency over the multiple billions of dollars they borrowed through Eurobonds.
“There is no transparency in our debt management. The only time we hear how much we owe as Ghanaiansis is when the Finance Minister is reading the budget and he tells us what our debt to GDP is. The NDC is going to change that.
“We’re to make the Debt Management Department of the Finance Ministry a separate, autonomous department. It will be an authority and it will have a head who will be autonomous and he will publish every quarter what are debt to GDP numbers are.
The NDC flag bearer added that his government would cap borrowing to keep it in check and avoid the Executive from repeating the ill of incessant borrowing.
“Aside from that, we are going to change part of the Public Financial Management Act and will put a clause there that caps how much a finance minister can borrow,” he said in an answer on how he will address the address the country’s debt crisis.
In response to a question about his plans for handling the national debt situation, he stated.
Mr. Mahama made the point that the Minister of Finance would have to abide by the amendment if it was decided by parliament that debt could not above 60% of GDP.
The leader of the opposition, who charged the ruling New Patriotic Party of “destroying” the nation’s economy, asserted that after the real borrowers have departed, the youth would be left to bear the financial load.
He questioned, “So who is going to pay that debt?,It is you the young people here who are going to pay” Mahama added.
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com
