Member of Parliament for Nhyiaeso, Stephen Amoah, has intimated that government cannot be blamed entirely for the current economic woes of the country.
Whilst admitting that Ghana’s debt to GDP is could be better, the outspoken politician said the economy took a big hit by Covid-19 pandemic.
A situation which, according to him, is beyond government’s control.
“Where our problem is today is our debt to GDP. But you cannot blame this government entirely unless you don’t understand the issues or you are not being fair.
“We’ve had over 22 months of impaired productivity, naturally, [hitches will occur]. We’ve been in the country for so many months, government has to pay public and civil service workers without them going to work because of Covid-19,” he stated on JoyNews’ AM Show.
The lawmaker continued, “Private sector had to sack over 40,000 people. PAYE government had to collect from them ceased, corporate taxes went down drastically. We had a situation where industry operations had to come to a halt. All of these affect productivity and also revenue generation.”
Mr. Amoah was contributing to the discussion on the country’s economy, following Moody’s downgrade of Ghana’s economic rating
He contended that it is unfair for government to be rated without considering the ravages caused by the health crisis.
“I am not saying that we shouldn’t raise issues. But impeded productivity definitely affects GDP growth and once GDP growth is affected uncontrollably, your debt to GDP will grow uncontrollably,” he said on Wednesday.
Already, government has asked Ghanaians not to pay attention to what it described as negative propaganda put out by rating agency Moody’s.