It has been established that Ghana's debt stock of 41.10 trillion cedis ($5.80 billion) at the end of December 2000 dates back to the First Republic of Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

The Democrat says available records indicate that between, 1960 to 1980 under the previous regimes of CPP, NLC, PP, NRC/SMA 1/SMC II as well as the PNP era, a total amount of $200 million represented the Disbursement Outstanding Debt (DOD).

Besides, between, 1981 to 1992 under the PNDC regime a total amount of $2.0 million represented the DOD.

Interestingly, most of the debt was contracted during the ERP/SA with the assistance of the World Bank and the IMF.

Meanwhile, between 1992 to 2001 under the NDC administration, and in line with article 181 of the constitution, the first and second Parliament of the 4th Republic approved a total amount of $3.6 billion as DOD.

Hon. Mike Allen Hammah, MP for Effutu in the Central Region made this observation in his contribution to the debate on the President's state of the nation address in Parliament last week. "The erroneous impression has been created that 41.10 trillion cedis has been misappropriated and misapplied by the previous government," he said, adding that his is most unfortunate and very misleading.

He added that most of the loans (about 80%) are long, term with repayment period of between 20 to 40 years.