Head of the Economics Department at the University of Ghana, Prof. William Baah-Boateng, says President Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party must look for ways to deal with projected fiscal deficits.
He stated that Ghana had over the years earned for itself, a track record of falling into fiscal deficits after every election year.
He described it as a challenge the government and people seem to be oblivious of.
Prof. Baah-Boateng explained that the urgency with which he spoke stemmed from the outbreak of Covid-19 and the amount of money government invested into it, coupled with election expenses.
“We have the issue of Covid-19 and we have the election. Every year we tend to overshoot our expenditure, at the end of the day, we are confronted with high fiscal deficits.
“The beginning of this new era has to come with strategies to address the situation.
“Although 2021 will not be an exception especially because of Covid-19, we are going to have a twin kind of challenge, a twin cause of fiscal deficits,” he said.
He stated that President Akufo-Addo and the NPP could take a cue from the year 2004 and build upon it.
“If you look at our figures, with the exception of 2004 where after the election we did not record any high fiscal deficit, we have always had that kind of challenge from 1992.
“The year 2000 was very high on fiscal deficits as well; while 2012 become the bigger kind of fiscal deficit that we encountered,” he said.
He further advised the government to develop bargaining strength to withstand the demand curve in 2021.
– Myjoyonline
