Eat the humble pie, accept we are HIPIC – Kuganab-Lem tells Govt

A former Member of Parliament for the Binduri Constituency in Upper East Region the Robert Baba Kuganab-Lem  has asked government to accept that Ghana is currently I highly indebted poor country, (HIPIC)

That he said was the only way the country would be able to secure some relief in the face of its ballooning debt stock.

Mr Kuganab-Lem  made call while speaking Pan African Television’s Good Morning Africa on Wednesday , November 17 monitored by GhanaPlus.com.

“I said from the beginning that this government must eat the humble pie and accept the fact that we HIPIC are heavily indebted country. That is what we are. And this situation occurred in President Kufour’s time and it has occurred again and it is good, we can’t pay because if 30% of your receipts are used to pay your debt, you are not even able to pay all then where are we going?”

“We just have to accept that fact that we are heavily indebted and then we get some relief that what we want”.

Mr Kuganab-Lem made the remarks while contributing to a report by the Insight Newspaper titled “Ghana Joins IFM HIPIC List Under Unprecedented Debt Burden”.

Mr Kuganab-Lem said government  can no longer hold on to its assertion of being a well performing economy when it had difficulties paying its debt.

Adding “I mean why do you say you have dignity when you don’t even have the  dignity at all because if you have dignity you wouldn’t have borrowed to roof levels”.

Ghana debt stock as at June 2021

Ghana’s total debt stock as at June 2021 stands at ₵334,78billion an equivalent US$58.08billion of representing 76.19% of GDP.

Out of the figure, external debt account for 161.81bn representing 36.82% of GDP while the remaining 172.97 representing 39.37% of GDP are domestic debt.

Source: GhanaPlus.com