Asserts the moderate-conservative economist, about Ghana's US$4.6 billion budget deficit: "This is the highest recorded budget deficit in Ghana’s history. From Nkrumah through Acheampong, Rawlings and Kufuor, no government has incurred this level of budget deficit. What is more worrying is that this provisional deficit figure excludes some Ghc 4.0 billion in commitments and arrears yet to be paid to contractors and other service providers. If we include these arrears the deficit for 2012 would be some 23% of GDP using rebased numbers (or some 35% of GDP using the old GDP series). These are mindboggling numbers. The crux of the problem is that government spending increased astronomically to 34.5% of GDP even though government revenues amounted to 16.1% of GDP (a gap of over 100%) for the year."
Mr. Bawumia continues his commentary: "Poor economic management has consequences. Unfortunately, the burden of the inevitable consequences of the NDC’s management of the economy is bound to fall disproportionately on the segments of society which are least able to afford it, as prices for petroleum products (whatever happened to the oil hedging policy?), transportation, water, electricity (in the face of water and power shortages), school fees, tax increases, expenditure cuts, unemployment, wage pressures, inflation, interest rates etc. shoot up and non-oil GDP growth slows down. This reality is already being felt and will soon be patently obvious for all to see."
Mahamudu Bawumia: "Ghana's Government Spending Is On An Unsustainable Path"
