Of the total Ghc100.5billion budget of Ghana, some GHC 35.8billion is allocated for the payment of public sector salaries while a whopping GHC 37.5billion is allocated to interest payments.
This leaves Ghc27.2billion which is then spread on the rest of the budget items including infrastructure.
The budget’s allocation to compensation (salaries) of just a little over 600,000 Ghanaians in public employment out of the 30.8million constitutes 35.6% of the total budget sum.
The allocation to interest payments is 37.4%.
This means that a whopping Ghc73.2billion out of the Ghc100.5billion, constituting 72.9% of the budget is going into interest payments, not the loan itself, and salaries.
In other words, 72.9% of the 2022 budget is going into recurrent expenditure, constituting a grave indictment on the economic acumen of the Akufo Addo administration.
Comparatively, the erstwhile Mahama government had done what it described as “Smart Borrowing” in which it borrowed and invested mostly in capital infrastructures such as the Atuabo Gas Pipeline and the AMERI power plant and negotiated repayment schedules that made room for the projects to generate funds to pay off the debts.
In contrast, the Akufo-Addo government is borrowing to pay salaries.