A summary of #Ghanas woes as outlined by Seth Terkper. The reason why we are in arrears in statutory payments and all else. #cashstrapped 1. Mr. Speaker, since November 2013, however, when the 2014 Budget was presented and approved by Parliament, the economy has experienced a number of pressures, which continue to pose challenges to the attainment of our 2014 economic targets. Notable among these challenges are: • the continuing shortfalls in tax and non-tax revenues, notably from grants and concessional financing – in the case of tax revenues, it is also partly due to the lower national output; • the consequential depreciation of the Cedi, which is having significant adverse effects on economic activity, public expenditure and other macroeconomic variables; and • declining gold and cocoa prices in 2013 which continue to have a lingering effect on the economy. Although cocoa prices have recovered, the continuous decline in the prices and volumes of gold still pose risks to the country’s external position and domestic revenue mobilization; 2. Power-sector disruptions, arising from the year-long shortages in gas supply from the West Africa Gas Pipeline and the frequent downtime of the TICO and BUI projects, amongst other disruptions, that have adversely affected power production and output have resulted in our reliance on higher imports of crude oil for thermal power generation. Mr. Speaker, these challenging factors have adversely affected the nation’s growth and output, domestic revenue mobilization effort, as well as balance of payments and reserves position. In addition, they have considerably undermined the implementation of policy decisions, such as the automatic utility price adjustments, thereby, giving rise to the payment of higher subsidies. These have added to the complexity in managing an economy in transition to a Middle Income Status—a complexity reinforced by the cuts in grants and in the terms on which the country can now attract grants and concessional financing, notably from the development partners, including the World Bank and African Development Bank.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 17:15:51 +0000
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