Former Finance minister, Seth Terkper has predicted that the NPP government will miss its budget deficit target for this year.
He argues that the government’s efforts to ensure tax compliance and cut down some expenditure may yield little impact on the economic prospects.
Mr. Terkper’s arguments are contained in an article where he impresses on the NPP not to cut ties with the IMF even as it concludes the deal next year.
The projection of missing the government’s budget deficit target, is but one of the six arguments for Ghana to sign onto the Policy Support Instrument (PSI) even after the expiration of the IMF program in December 2018.
According to Mr. Seth Terkper, there seems to be no evidence in the six months’ old administration of the NPP that tax compliance and expenditure cuts alone can fill the fiscal space.
He contends that this will result in more borrowing in the absence of HIPC space.
Even though the NDC ended its administration last year with a budget deficit of 8.7 percent, the NPP government is confident of reducing the figure to 6.5 percent by the end of this year.
This is still lower than the 51/4 percent target set by the IMF.
Meanwhile, the former Finance Minister takes a dig at the NPP when he alluded to what he describes as a convergence of policy thinking.
These include; the seeming agreement on the inevitability of ‘smart borrowing’ and debt management with mechanisms such as the institution of a Sinking Fund, Buy-Back, refinancing, escrow/self-financing, among others.
In addition, Seth Terkper wants the NPP to stop cutting back on substantive tax measures such as the Energy Sector Levy Act (ESLA) and the 17.5 per cent VAT in addition to other Public Financial Management measures such as GIFMIS.
Source: citifmonline.com
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INCOMPETENT TEKPER IS STILL TALKING? HIS MESS IS WHAT HAS DROWNED THE NATION. NANA IS NOT AS WASTEFUL AS MAHAMA.
Hahahah..so this man is still talking? After helping Mahama to fail miserably, u r still talking. Even simple polio vaccines koraaa, u said there was no money. See man en face like scary movie. I hope NPP changes the location for the Eastern Region University, so that the hostels u hv built wld become waste.
Why this Seth Terkper even talking about managing an economy and projecting budget deficit. What measure did he puts in place to help the economy of Ghana to grow and now he got the nerves to say soemthing about missing budget deficit if cut with IMF prgorams??? Does that man know better than our economic master Dr vice President Bawumia and can he manage economy better than him? What happened under so called Seth Terkper leadership is massaging of non existing figures and lies about the performance of Ghanaian economy. But he Seth Terkper was not too smart that statistical values do speak for itseif and you cannot lie with it. Please keep your mouth shut and preach economy to your family and NDC
We need all on board. Sieve the advice and take and implement those that will help the country. No need to vilify anyone for his ideas. We stand stronger when solutions are proffered and good ones are implemented
Where has this Terkper man been hiding. If I were him I will ***barred word*** and not disturb the ears of Ghanaians, after plunging the economy into a mess.