The Vice Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party has accused the Finance Minister Seth Terkper of peddling untruths in the debt to GDP figure he released during his supplementary budget in July.
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, at a lecture on the country’s economy, Thursday, said the minister did not only provide false figures but could not also account for a whopping amount of 1.7 billion cedis spent.
Minister Seth Terkper in July this year went to Parliament with a supplementary budget during which he requested an amount of GH?1.98 billion to finance activities by government.
Apart from the money he requested for, the Minister said Ghana’s economy grew by 4.9% in the first quarter of 2016 as compared to 4.5% in 2015.
He also stated that the public debt had decreased from 72% at the end of 2015 to 63% at the end of May 2016.
Based on the giant strides made in the economic management, Seth Terkper told MPs, Ghana’s economy is transitioning from a low-income status to a middle-income status.
But addressing his lecture, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia said the figures by the Minister don’t add up.
“The Minister’s calculation is plain wrong and misleading” he told a charged crowd of fanatic NPP supporters and some members of the diplomatic corps.
He said instead of the Minister using debt of the first quarter and dividing it by the Gross Domestic Product of same quarter, the Minister in an unceremonious manner took the debt of the first quarter and divided it by the projected GDP at the end of the year.
As a result of the unorthodox practice, Dr Bawumia said the debt to GDP is pegged at 62% when in actual fact the figure is 72%.
“If you ask the minister how he achieved the dramatic reduction he will not be able to say it,” he challenged.
He stated that the 2016 supplementary budget was muddied further by an amount of 1.7 billion cedis which cannot be accounted for.
“How can this amount still be a mystery after 2015, even though it is money that has been spent?” he asked.
This he said “will lead to a missing of the IMF target, and could also mean that fiscal deficit is higher than what has been recorded.”
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