Ghana’s 2010 budget deficit is GH¢1.7 billion – Bank of Ghana

The government of Ghana has missed its 2010 budget deficit of GH¢1.3 billion which is 2.9% of GDP. The 2010 budget deficit according to the Bank of Ghana is GH¢1.7 billion which is 3.7% of GDP.

The governor of the central bank, Kwesi Amissah-Arthur told the media Friday morning February 18, 2011 at a press conference in Accra that its analysis of government operations based on the narrow coverage and comparisons to GDP are with respect to the country’s rebased GDP and the deficit calculations were based on that.

In November 2010, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) revalued the country’s GDP at GH₵44.8 billion for 2010. It had earlier estimated the GDP at GH₵25.6 billion. The new growth projection was made according to a re-based index of the economy aimed at more accurately reflecting sectors such as banking and telecoms. The base year for the index was put at the year 2006 instead of 1993.

The governor said the Tax-GDP ratio of 13.3% of GDP narrowly missed the target of 13.4%.

Mr. Amissah-Arthur said the total expenditure for 2010 was GH¢8.8 billion (19.7% of rebased GDP) and that was 1.3% above the target of GH¢8.3 billion.

The deficit of GH¢1.7 billion together with net foreign loan repayment of GH¢30 million and the TOR Debt Financing of GH¢445 million created a resource gap of GH¢2.1 billion (4.8% of GDP), he said.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi