{"id":80426,"date":"2025-07-25T01:10:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T01:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=80426"},"modified":"2025-07-25T01:10:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T01:10:17","slug":"debt-restructuring-programme-was-poorly-structured-finance-minister-ato-forson-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=80426","title":{"rendered":"Debt restructuring programme was poorly structured \u2013 Finance Minister Ato Forson says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'>\n                <div class=\"twp-read-time\">\n                \t<i class=\"booster-icon twp-clock\"><\/i> <span>Read Time:<\/span>1 Minute, 51 Second                <\/div>\n\n            <\/div><div>\n<p>Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson has criticised the debt restructuring programme undertaken by the Akufo-Addo administration, describing it as poorly designed, cancerous, and fundamentally unfair.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on JoyNews\u2019 <em>PM Express<\/em> on Thursday, July 22, just hours after presenting the 2025 Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review to Parliament, he questioned the very architecture of the debt overhaul he inherited. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst of all, the debt restructuring for me was not well structured, it was very badly structured,\u201d he told host Evans Mensah. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI say so in the sense that, you would ask, why do you restructure your debt and create such a hump?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Finance Minister did not mince words, suggesting the design of the restructuring raised suspicions about the intent behind it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre you setting someone up to fail? No one restructures a debt like this. Because restructuring a debt by creating this kind of humps can be cancerous.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said the consequences of such a fiscal approach could be devastating, reminiscent of the economic turmoil that rocked the country in recent years. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt can set the country back to another economic disaster like we saw in 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"800\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MXYAwjc1v7c?si=daKZ5eVbNBBysMKE\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Dr. Forson rejected any suggestion that the previous government\u2019s restructuring gave his administration fiscal room to manoeuvre. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo the debt restructuring that they [NPP] did, I can\u2019t give them credit,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p>He further condemned the controversial decision that saw pensioners being forced to forgo their returns during the process. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou do a debt restructuring to the extent that you deny pensioners of their savings and their dignity, cannot be said to be a good debt restructuring.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Taking aim at the root cause, the Minister blamed reckless borrowing under Akufo-Addo\u2019s watch. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy is it that government should have gone into debt restructuring when it was avoidable in the first place. It is because the Akufo-Addo government borrowed and borrowed until Ghana could not pay its debt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He painted a dire picture of the moment fiscal irresponsibility collided with the needs of the people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey borrowed and borrowed until the needs of the citizens and then the needs of the creditors collided. 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debt restructuring programme undertaken by the Akufo-Addo administration, describing it as poorly designed, cancerous, and fundamentally unfair.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}