ACCRA, March. 11, GNA – The African Development Bank(AfDB) has estimated that African governments will need an additional US$154 Billion in 2020 to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
To address that, the Sustainable Borrowing Policy of the AFDB has introduced two pillars to manage debt.
Mr Kojo Razak Opoku, a member of the New Patriotic Party,who was speaking to the Ghana News Agency on government’s mitigative measures said the first pillar emphasised debt management and transparency through agreed policy actions and technical assistance, while the second pillar would rely on coordination and partnerships with other multilateral development banks, development partners and lenders.
He said since multilateral banks such as AfDB was taking pragmatic steps to address the post COVID-19 challenges,”I respectfully would like to appeal to Ghanaians to support the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to use a homegrown policy such as E-levy to revive and sustain the Ghanaian post COVID-19 economy.”
He said domestically, the country had the capacity through the Mobile Money industry to support the economy with US$1 billion annually through E-levy without borrowing the same amount from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to pile up the country’s debt to GDP ratio.
Mr Razak Opoku said the so called assistance given by World Bank and the IMF in the form of loans and grants could be best described as miserly donations in exchange for policy measures that were not workable.
“We are politically independent but economically dependent largely on the Western World, World Bank and the IMF.”
GNA