John Dramani Mahama, the flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has vowed to amend the Public Financial Management Act to limit the amount of money Ghana can borrow from external creditors if elected.
Addressing supporters in Dodowa as part of his Greater Accra regional campaign, Mahama criticized the lack of transparency in the country’s debt management. He promised that the next NDC administration would make the debt management department of the Finance Ministry an independent body, tasked with publishing Ghana’s debt-to-GDP ratio every quarter.
Mahama further proposed capping external borrowing by including a clause in the Public Financial Management Act, ensuring future finance ministers cannot exceed agreed debt limits. This, he said, would prevent excessive borrowing and protect future generations from unsustainable debt.
“There is no transparency in our debt management. The only time we hear how much we owe as Ghanaians is when the Minister of Finance is reading the budget and tells us what our debt-to-GDP is. NDC is going to change that.
“We are going to make the debt management department of the Finance Ministry a separate autonomous department. It will be a Debt Management Authority and it will have a head who will be autonomous and he will publish every quarter what our debt-to-GDP numbers are.
“Aside from that, we will change parts of the Public Financial Management Act and put a clause there on how much money a Finance Minister can borrow. So, if we agree that we should not borrow more than 60% of GDP, then we will put it in the Public Financial Management Act so that no finance minister can come in future and borrow money as badly as he wants and leave a debt for the young people who are sitting here,” he stated.
