President John Dramani Mahama has attributed Ghana’s current debt crisis to unchecked and arbitrary borrowing by former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, stressing that the lack of proper oversight under his leadership led the country into unsustainable levels of debt.
Addressing concerns over Ghana’s rising debt levels, President Mahama said one of the key lessons from the nation’s recent economic crisis is the urgent need to place limits on the borrowing powers of government officials, particularly the finance minister.
“With regard to debt management, one of the economic crises we went through was that we should not have a finance minister who just has the right to borrow arbitrarily and that is exactly what happened, and we landed in this huge debt,” President Mahama stated, referring to Ken Ofori-Atta’s tenure.
To prevent a recurrence, the President announced plans to establish a standalone Debt Management Authority as part of broader reforms to enhance transparency and accountability in fiscal governance.
“We are setting up a Debt Management Authority. Before, the debt management department was located in the Ministry of Finance. Now we want to take it out and make it a separate entity,” he explained.
He added that the new authority will be responsible for monitoring the accumulation of public debt, publishing regular statistics on Ghana’s debt position, and ensuring that all borrowing is transparent and guided by policy.
“It will publish statistics on our debt position and everything, so that it is more transparent in the way debt is accumulated. So that is a new thing that we are introducing,” the President noted.
The announcement was made during a courtesy call at the Presidency by U.S. billionaire investor and philanthropist Mr. Alex Soros, chair of the Board of Directors of the Open Society Foundations and son of world-renowned financier George Soros. Mr. Soros also sits on the investment committee of Soros Fund Management.
The move to create a Debt Management Authority is part of a broader effort by President Mahama’s administration to rebuild investor confidence and introduce safeguards against reckless fiscal decisions that have previously jeopardized economic stability.
