Ghana Is Still Weak To Global Shocks —A New World Bank Report

According to a World Bank report, Ghana’s economic growth and debt accumulation over the past ten years have left it extremely weak to shocks from around the world.

The recent World Bank report on Ghana’s public finance review revealed this.

According to the report, oil production and debt accumulation have propelled the nation’s economic growth over the last ten years, leaving it extremely vulnerable to shocks from around the world.

According to the report, despite significant efforts to stabilize the economy since 2022, the nation needed to implement structural reforms in addition to fiscal consolidation in order to address the underlying causes of the crisis.

The report, “Building the foundations for a resilient and equitable fiscal policy,” states that this entails putting policies in place to strengthen revenue collection, improve expenditure controls, and encourage more effective public spending.

Robert Taliercio, the World Bank’s Country Director for Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, recently unveiled the Ghana Public Finance Review Report in Accra. It found that Ghana must continue its aggressive fiscal consolidation efforts by making sure that the changes were sustainable and equitable.

“It is crucial to protect pro-poor and pro-growth investment while enhancing domestic revenue mobilisation. Additionally, Ghana must address the increasing fiscal liabilities stemming from the energy and cocoa sectors,” Robert Taliercio said.

The World Bank report also revealed that the oil industry played a major role in the nation’s 6.8% annual GDP growth between 2008 and 2019.

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But the expansion had come at a price, as the nation’s debt load had risen to concerning proportions.

The report also emphasizes how a number of factors, including ineffective public spending, weak expenditure controls, poor revenue collection, and expensive borrowing, contributed to the nation’s most recent debt crisis.

Due to these fundamental problems, the nation is now vulnerable to outside shocks, endangering the stability of its economy.