Fears Grow Over Ghana’s Debt; Gov’t To Spend 45% of Income Servicing Debts In 2021- Bright Simmons

Ghanaian social innovator and vice-president, in charge of research at IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Bright Simmons has painted a very gloomy picture of Ghana’s economy suggesting Ghanaians are not angry enough.

In a recent twitter post, Mr. Simmons suggested that Ghana’s government will spend 45% of its revenue’s serving debts. In comparison to Kenya, another developing country that is spending only 15% of its income servicing debts. Many economic analysts including Joe Jackson and Ken Thompson of Dalex Finance have in the recent past also painted the poor state of Ghana’s economy suggesting the economy is broke.

The very latest to add his voice is Businessman Dr. Kofi Amoah who is soliciting signatures, campaigning for Ghana to put an end to borrowing and for the Bretton wood institutions to desist from lending any further support to Ghana. His action follows a similar one by Kenyans

In 2021 Kenya will spend ~15% of govt income servicing debt. Ghana will spend ~45%. Kenya went for an IMF loan of $2.4bn to be disbursed over 3 yrs at a ~2% interest rate. Ghana just borrowed $3bn at an avg rate of 8%+. 200,000 Kenyans are protesting. Ghana is celebrating. 🤷🏽‍♂️

— Bright Simons (@BBSimons) April 8, 2021

The extent of Ghana’s public debt has been growing ever since. According to Statista, the national debt of Ghana in 2018  amounted to around 30.54 billion U.S. dollars. It is projected to grow to around 85 billion dollars by 2025. Here is a projection by Statista

Brights Simmons said although Kenyans are paying a 2 percent interest on their 2.4 billion dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund, its citizens are up in arms against the decision, a completely different situation in Ghana, he said.