We won’t Stop Borrowing-Akufo Addo taunts Ghanaians -As Ghana’s debt inches dangerously towards HIPC

In what is clearly a sharp departure from his campaign promises, President Akufo Addo has vowed that his administration will not stop borrowing.

“We will borrow money; everybody borrows money. The United States of America is one of the biggest debtors in the world. So borrowing money is not necessarily a betrayal of the concept of independence. The key for us in borrowing money is that we borrow money to create assets that will allow us to pay the money back. That is the key…If we borrow the money and use it properly it is an asset for us in expanding our economy and infrastructure,” President Akufo Addo said last Thursday while speaking at an entrepreneurship forum in Nigeria organised by a foundation owned by Nigerian Multi-billionaire and owner of United Bank of Africa, Tony Elumelo.

This statement is a far departure from statements made by the then Candidate Akufo Addo and his running-mate Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia prior to the 2016 presidential elections. They harshly criticised the loan appetite of the erstwhile administration of John Dramani Mahama.

They described that administration’s borrowing as “reckless”, “worrying” and “lazy”

“On this track, Ghana is clearly on the way back to the unsustainable debt level that pushed us to HIPC…If the current borrowing binge continuous it will only be a matter of time before the international rating agency will classify Ghana as a country with a high risk of debt distress,” Dr. Bawumia warned while in opposition.

However, in approximately three years of the Akufo Addo administration, it had issued an unprecedented number of sovereign bonds and has racked up public debt that currently stands at about GHC 160 billion, representing 65.9 per cent of the GDP-a few points shy of debt unsustainability popularly called Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC).

 Last week, the World Bank and IMF issued a report warning that the country’s debt to GDP ratio will be around 63 % by the close of this year. Ghana’s debt to GDP continues to look gloomy under the Akufo Addo administration. In 2017, the figure was around 69.2%, by 2018, it had climbed to 70.7% and the predictions for 2019 continue the trend.