National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer and former President John Dramani Mahama has emphasised the need for urgent fiscal reforms not only in the economic sphere but also in governance.

Mahama, during an interview with Global South World, addressed the pressing economic issues facing Ghana.

He pointed to high inflation, a depreciating currency, and an unbalanced macroeconomic framework as some of the things affecting the country.

“Our economy is in crisis, and everything else has a linkage to the economy. Inflation is up, we have a depreciating currency, and our whole macroeconomic framework is unbalanced. So, we need urgent fiscal reforms, not only in the sphere of the economy but also in governance.

“The cause of inflation was the heavy borrowing the government did from the Central Bank. In a span of two years, they borrowed in excess of 70 billion cedis, driving inflation up. I remember that in our final year in office in 2016, we did zero central bank financing.

"And so it meant that we financed the budget from our own resources. We need to go back to that. Already in the IMF program, the program has stopped central bank financing,” he stressed.

To address the economic challenges, Mahama proposed several measures, including reducing government expenditure, increasing revenues through non-tax means, and smart borrowing to avoid escalating public debt.

“We need to undertake some fiscal reforms, bring down expenditure, and increase revenues. Not increase revenues by just adding additional taxes, but looking at non-tax revenues and smart borrowing, so that we don't continue to increase the public debt.

“There's a huge informal sector that is paying no taxes. So we'll find smart ways of getting them into the tax system. That's the first one. And then the second one is to cut government expenditure. I mean, at one point, this government had 125 ministers, and I mean, that clearly is excessive. Even now they have 87 ministers. So we have promised that we're going to cut that down to 60 ministers,” he stated.

The NDC flagbearer stressed the importance of eliminating waste in the government sector, citing the Auditor General's report, which indicates significant losses due to malfeasance and malpractices.

“Every year we have the Auditor General's report, and it shows that we lose anything between 13 and 15 billion cedis every year to malfeasance and malpractices. So one of the things we want to do is fight against corruption. Get special courts to try people who are indicted in the Auditor General's report so that it can be a deterrent to others not to do the same thing,” he added.

Mahama’s comments come as the nation gears up for the December 7, 2024, general elections.

NDC flagbearer and former President John Dramani Mahama will be competing against Vice-President and NPP flagbearer, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia; New Force Movement leader, Nana Kwame Bediako; Movement for Change leader Alan Kyerematen, and eight other candidates.



ID/MA

Watch the latest edition of BizTech below:



Click here to follow the GhanaWeb Business WhatsApp channel