The marginal increase in Ghana’s total public debt stock by ¢130 million to ¢393.4 billion in June 2022, about 78.3 per cent of Gross Domestic Product is one of the trending stories in the Ghanaian press on Monday.

The Ghanaian Times reports that Ghana’s total public debt stock went up marginally by ¢130 million to ¢393.4 billion in June 2022, about 78.3 per cent  of Gross Domestic Product, according to the Summary of Economic and Financial Data by the Bank of Ghana.

This is against a revised ¢392.1 billion (78 per cent of GDP) recorded in March 2022. The earlier figure put out by the Central Bank in May 2022 was ¢391.9 billion.

In dollar term, the country’s debt dropped marginally to $54.4 billion in June 2022, from $55.1 billion in March 2022.

A careful look at the data suggests that the country did not borrow fresh funds during the 2rd quarter of 2022.

According to the figures, the total public debt stock of the country dropped to ¢388.1 billion in April 2022, from ¢392.1 billion in March 2022. It later went up marginally to ¢389.2 billion in May 2022 and subsequently to ¢393.4 billion in June 2022.

The domestic debt remained unchanged at ¢190.1 billion in June 2022. In March 2022, the domestic debt stood at ¢190.1 billion.

This is equivalent to 37.8 per cent of GDP.

However, the external component of the total public debt went up marginally to ¢203.4 billion in June 2022, from ¢201.9 million in March 2022. This was as a result of exchange rate fluctuation.

The newspaper says that Fitch Solutions has shockingly revised Ghana’s growth rate to 2.6 per cent in 2022, from its earlier forecast of 4.8 per cent.

This is far lower than the projections by the International Monetary Fund (5.2 per cent) and the World Bank (5.0 per cent).

The research arm of ratings agency, Fitch, is attributing this to the rising inflation rate, currency weakness, and the Russian-Ukraine war, among other factors which it believes will erode the purchasing of consumers and affect the profit margins of businesses.

Giving an update on Sub Saharan Africa economies for the first half of this year, Country Risk Analyst at Fitch Solutions, Mike Kruninger, said it expects the Ghanaian economy to expand to 4.9 per cent in 2023.

“Overall, we forecast the Ghanaian economy to post real growth of 2.6 per cent in 2022 after which it will accelerate to 4.9 per cent in 2023. Whereas the slow growth rate, especially for 2022, is in a decade, we believe that the economy will face pretty significant challenges in the short term.”

“So the first challenge and one of the most significant ones is rapidly rising inflation. The consumer price growth reached 26.6 per cent in May [2022], which is the highest inflation rate in over 18 years. Really, it is biting into the purchasing power of the households and eroding corporate profit margins,” he explained.

Mr Kruninger also expressed worry about the declining consumer confidence.

“So if we look at the consumer confidence which is published by the Bank of Ghana, we see that sentiments are indeed really down. The April 2022 index is even lower than the value in April 2020 in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. And as a result, we expect that consumer spending will be subdued over the coming months.”

The Graphic reports that the government will use today’s mid-year budget review (MYBR) to address the myriad of challenges facing the Nation Builders Corps (NABCo) programme that was introduced in 2018 to provide jobs for the teaming youth.

It is expected that it would announce a comprehensive exercise to integrate the beneficiaries into the YouStart programme, another initiative of the government.

The exercise would also help to clear the outstanding arrears owed the thousands of young people engaged under the programme in the coming months, as part of efforts to ease the burden of the youth.

The Finance Minister, Mr Ofori-Atta, is expected to announce these and other youth-centered policies today when he appears in Parliament to present his sixth in the row MYBR.

It comes at a time when the government has started discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a programme to shore up the country’s balance of payment position.

It is understood that the presentation would also seek to rally the nation behind the prospective IMF programme in line with the government’s agenda to fast track the economic recovery and ease the burden on the citizens.

Mr Ofori-Atta is expected to use the opportunity to call for a non-partisan support for the programme, which it said was occasioned by the ravages of the COVID-19 pademic and the Russia/Ukraine conflict.

The newspaper says that Ghana will revert to writing the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in May/June in 2024, the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa has announced.

He explained that currently, Ghana was doing a gradual recovery learning, based on contact hours in the classroom.

“We are hoping that by 2024, we would have come up to the same level with the other member countries.

“That is why we said this year the calendar that we put out was a transitional calendar. We are transiting to go back to our old calendar when we start school from September/October and end in June/July the following year,” he explained in an interview with the Daily Graphic.

Prof. Opoku-Amankwa indicated that this year, WASSCE candidates would write the examination from August 1 to September 27, 2022, while “for 2023, we hope to write the examination a bit earlier than this year, most likely July/August”.

This year’s WASSCE will be written by Ghana alone.

This is because the other four-member countries of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) — Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia — have returned to the May/June calendar and administered the WASSCE for their school candidates from May 9 to June 24, this year.

The GES Director-General explained that Ghana made a case that returning to the May/June calendar immediately would amount to disadvantaging the candidates “because they would not have met the 1,134 contact hours”.

“So we made a case to WAEC, the issue was considered at the international level and they agreed that we write our examination outside of the others,” he explained.

GIK/APA