'No Gov't can say they won't borrow, that's ridiculous' – Bawumia

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has said the Akufo-Addo government will borrow but do so “responsibly” rather than “recklessly.” “We are going to reduce the Debt-to-GDP ratios over time,” Dr Bawumia said on Day 2 of the National Policy Summit on Tuesday, 15 August, adding: “… A lot of people misunderstand when we say that we are going to be responsible, it doesn’t mean we will not borrow money, it only means that we are going to borrow responsibly and not recklessly.” “No government can say they won’t borrow money, that is ridiculous, but you have to borrow responsibly and not recklessly and that is the way we are going to manage this economy,” he told the gathering at the Accra International Conference Centre. Dr Bawumia’s comments dovetail into those recently made by Deputy Finance Minister Abena Osei Asare who said there is "no country in the world that doesn't borrow" in defence of the Akufo-Addo government's borrowing for certain projects, including one that aims to make Ghana's capital city, Accra, the cleanest in Africa. Defending the decision by the government to borrow $48million for the Greater Accra Sustainable Sanitation and Livelihoods Improvement project on the floor of parliament on Wednesday, 2 August, vis-à-vis the New Patriotic Party's criticism of the Mahama administration as a reckless borrower when the NPP was in opposition, Ms Osei Asare told parliament that: "What we were speaking against was the reckless borrowing by the previous government." "We are not against borrowing," the Atiwa East MP said, adding: "We will only borrow for projects that can pay for itself or we borrow for a social project where the benefit far outweighs the cost – like this one." The $48million is "to improve sanitation in Greater Accra," she reiterated, adding: "Year-on-year, there is outbreak of cholera and we want to change some of these things; that is why we feel, for this loan, the social benefit will far outweigh the cost. We value human life, so we feel we should improve sanitation in Greater Accra." But Ho Central MP Benjamin Kpodo, disagreed. He said: "Mr. Speaker, I have noticed that our honourable Deputy Minister is leading us in the wrong direction. If she is saying that the previous government has borrowed excessively and recklessly and she has come to inherit it, what she should do to bring the debt down is to pay back but she is rather borrowing." Other Minority MPs also criticized the government's penchant for borrowing even though they lauded the president's ambition to leave behind a clean capital city at the end of his term of office.

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