The International Monetary Fund( IMF) has proposed the establishment of a council to regulate Ghana's debt behaviour.
The council is to be called the Fiscal Council which will primarily be responsible for controlling the country's expenditure.
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The council is to be called the Fiscal Council which will primarily be responsible for controlling the country's expenditure.
Ghana's debt situation has become a matter of concern as the Bank of Ghana puts the country's total public debt, as at June 2015, at GHC90 billion. It is projected to hit close to GHC130 billion by the end of 2015. There are also concerns that if the country continues on its current debt trajectory it may attain the Highly Indebted Poor Country Status-HIPC, which it stepped out of in 2003.
The Fiscal Council will take charge of sticking to a strict regime of servicing the country's debt using domestic taxes. It will comprise of local economists as well as international experts.
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The IMF is also calling for legal backing for the council, to ensure that it has enough powers to instil authority.
Ghana took on an IMF bailout in 2014 for an amount of $930 million dollars to aid the country's revenue generation shortage and for policy credibility for its home- grown policy to stabilize the economy, according to government.
In return for these bailouts the IMF is demanding of government to stabilize the wage bill, increase domestic tax revenue targets, consolidate public sector expenditure, and most important of all, reduce government's increasing debts
