It’s too early for our friends from the international community to be singing praises – Seth Terkper

A former Finance Minister, Seth Terkper, has asked the international community and even the government to be measured in celebrating the country’s efforts in achieving economic recovery.

According to him, the economic indicators show that the country is not yet out of the woods and will be too soon to be too excited.

Inflation, exchange rates, and the country’s debt levels are still very high and this shows that the country is still in crisis.

“If you consider when [inflation] it crosses 40% that is another three-fold, and you looking at debt at 57% of Gross Domestic Product, now closely to 100%. Even when you take out the contingent liabilities and others, if we are in the 90% right from 57% of GDP that is doubling the debt-to-GDP ratio.

“I granted an interview and wrote a short article that said that we should not be made complacent by those who are in a position to know where Ghana’s economy is at the moment.

“I think it is particularly after the debacle of the BoG [Bank of Ghana] showing the extent to which the deficit [fiscal] was monetized, the economy was monetized which is the course of the inflation that we talking about. I think it is a bit too early especially for our friends from the international community to be singing our praises,” he added.

Seth Terkper said this does not mean the country is not improving.

He said “I am not saying there hasn’t been any success so far in terms of the injection of foreign exchange by the multilateral institutions in particular into the economy to try and stabilise the situation, particularly significant flows of COVID-19 funds.

“During the COVID-19 period, about ¢60 billion which is six times what we have always used to turn around the economy was injected into the economy.

“Remember no government has done a turnaround of the economy using more than $1 billion,” he added.