Cassiel Ato Forson is a member of the Finance Committee of Parliament
Cassiel Ato Forson, a member of the Finance Committee on Finance in Parliament, has explained that many years of borrowing that has ended up in spending has led the country into one that has done more in interest payment than even capital expenditure.
He said the practice of borrowing money and using it for other things that investing it has caused the country a great deal.
“At the end of December 2016, interest payment on total public debt was about 150% of capital expenditure. What this means is that if you are to spend one Cedis on capital expenditure, you need to spend one cedi fifty pesewas on paying your interest. It ballooned to 200% by December 2017.
“So, by the end of December 2017, you needed two times the amount you used in servicing your debt – in fact, let me put it this way: if you needed one cedi for the purposes of capital expenditure, you needed two times that amount before you can service your debt, so 200%.
“At the end of December 2020, what we saw is that this 200 moved to 203.59%. So you see where the NPP has sent us to; populism – this is the result of populism. We are spending more on interest payment than even capital expenditure because we are borrowing left, right, and center,” he explained.
Cassiel Ato Forson made this known during an NDC Ranking Members Forum on the Policy Dialogue on the Economy in Accra.
