Government has no ideas to revive the economy anytime soon – Economist
An Economist, Dr Theophilus Acheampong has said the downgrade by Standard and Poor’s has shown that he government has lost ideas to be able to put the economy back on its feet this year.
“I think what the market was reacting to and other statements that have come, including the mid-year budget that was read a few weeks ago, is that those policies are not credible and would not be able to deliver the gains that the government anticipates,” he noted.
To buttress his point, he revealed that Ghana had already hit the 5% mark midway through this year indicating Ghana’s 6.6 per cent fiscal deficit target is an example.
“The reality of what that means is that the government will have to make far more significant cuts than it already has done if it is to maintain or attain the deficit figure.”
In general, Dr Acheampong feels that observers “see a disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality.”
“Those numbers don’t add up and people don’t necessarily believe the numbers,” he added.
Ghana’s foreign and local credit ratings suffered yet another downgrade from B-B’ to CCC+C with a negative economic outlook from the Standard & Poor rating firm.
Before this, Ghana’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘B-‘ from ‘B’ and the outlook was rated negative by Fitch.
Moody’s investor service gave another gloomy outlook of Ghana’s economy underperformance by also downgrading Ghana’s long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings to Caa1 from B3 with a stable outlook.
