The Finance Minister, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta, appearing at the Plenary in Parliament, has disclosed that the country’s debt has shot up to GH¢170.8 billion.
Reading the 2019 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of government, Mr. Ofori-Atta stated that the nominal public debt stock as of the end of September 2018 was GH¢170.8 billion, comprising external and domestic debt of GH¢86.6 billion and GH¢84.1 billion respectively.
The Finance Minister further revealed that the public debt (including financial sector bailout) as a percentage of GDP stood at 70.7 percent at the end of September 2018 compared with 69.2 per cent during the same period in 2017.
Mr. Ofori-Atta reiterated that the public debt stock (excluding the financial sector clean-up cost) as a ratio of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is 66.5 percent.
On debt-to-GDP ratio, the Finance Minister stated that in terms of the re-based GDP, the public debt-to-GDP ratio is 57.2 percent including financial sector clean-up cost and 53.9 percent excluding clean-up cost.
On the government’s policies to create jobs, Mr. Ofori-Atta again informed the House that the private sector created over 200,000 jobs in the first 10 months of 2018 due to prudent policies implemented by the government.
Presenting the Budget Statement, the Finance Minister stressed that based on the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) data, the private sector added 208,620 formal jobs in the first 10 months of 2018, an increase on the 197,000 formal jobs registered in 2017.
“Our policies have improved the business environment and the private sector has responded by increasing jobs. We have resourced the Ghana Statistical Service and the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations to develop a more robust system to track employment on a quarterly basis”, he revealed.
On other job opportunities in some sectors of the economy, Mr. Ofori-Atta explained that the Ministry of Finance granted financial clearance to various agencies to recruit 88,719 Ghanaians into critical sectors of agriculture, health, and education over the period 2017 and 2018 to improve service delivery.
On his conclusion on job creation, the Finance Minister added that the Nation Builders Corps (NaBCo), a three-year transitional job opportunity for young graduates has enrolled 100,000 young graduates to support the delivery of critical public services.
Source: GhanaJustice/S.Ayisi
