5.7% GDP growth target for 2021 likely to be missed – Seth Terpker

A former Finance Minister, Seth Terkper, has expressed doubt about governments’ ability to achieve its growth target of 5.7 percent in the year 2021.

During his presentation of the 2021 Expenditure in advance appropriation to Parliament on Wednesday, 28th October 2020, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta said he expected growth to rebound strongly in 2021 at 5.7 percent as a result of the implementation of government’s transformation and revitalization phase of the Ghana CARES (Obaatanpa) Programme.

But in an interview with Citi Business News, Seth Terkper said he expects economic growth to be in line with the projections of the International Monetary Fund which sees the economy growing by 4.2 percent in 2021.

“Well, I would go with the IMF and the World Bank. Because they are looking at the trajectory, and remember in 2016 they did say that the economy will grow and rebound at 6% -7%, which is exactly what happened when they took over on account of Sankofa and TEN, which revenue flowed exclusively to them, but which revenue was not used to boost the economy because we went into a consumption spree instead of investment.”

“And, so I would go for now with the Fund and the Bank because they have been credible over the years,” he added.