Former Finance Minister, Seth Terkper, has waded into the debate over whether or not the government should put the country on lockdown following the continuous surge in confirmed coronavirus cases.
Speaking Thursday on current affairs programme Upfront on JoyNews, Mr Terkper, weighed in on the possible impact such a decision would have on the economy and suggested Ghanaians are told what the repercussion will be.
This is because the government currently does not have the fiscal space and would, therefore, have to resort to borrowing to support the economy, he said.
President Nana Akufo-Addo earlier at a meeting with the leadership of the Trades Union Congress on Thursday, said government is not considering a lockdown currently because of the implications it will have on many people and the economy at large.
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“If you lockdown Accra, what are the consequences? If we lockdown the country, what are the consequences? A responsible government is required to look at all this before decisions are made and that is the exercise on which we are currently engaged,” the president argued.
Commenting on the issue, the former Finance Minister noted that government does not have the fiscal capability to support the economy should there be a lockdown because “the consequences will be a higher deficit…”
“It is important for the government to acknowledge that some of the donors that would have come to our aid are themselves going through critical crisis,” he told host, Winston Amoah.
“I wouldn’t blame it on non-performance but we had issues. We were keen to showing the world that we were doing well when in fact we had a deficit which is already over and above the 5% prescribed by the Fiscal Responsibility Act,” he said.