Fiscal imbalance in economy must be addressed – Dr Gatsi

Economist, Dr John Gatsi is charging managers of the economy to critically address the fiscal imbalances within the economy in a bid to portray a good outlook for debt sustainability.

Dr Gatsi’s comments come in the wake of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowering its forecast for global economic growth this year and have called on advanced economies to maintain accommodative monetary policies.

In an interview with Citi Business News, Dr Gatsi said imbalances with revenue mobilization and trade must drive efforts to improve the current debt sustainability ration in the country.

“GRA has indicated it wants to increase revenue mobilization; imbalance in terms of our expenditure and the revenue that we collect and in our case the revenue is available just that we are not putting in the mechanism to collect them effectively,’’ Dr Gatsi noted.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its latest World Economic Outlook Report lowered its forecast by 0.3 percentage points for this year and 2016.

It has also projected global growth at 3.5percent for 2015 and 3.7percent for 2016 Speaking further on the matter, Dr Gatsi was of the view that current account deficit in terms of trade must be closed through various policies through the Finance Ministry’s point of view, the Trade Ministry and the general performance of agriculture in the country.

He added that the imbalances must inform decisions by managers of the economy this year; ‘’The IMF outlook is for the global economy, it’s an average therefore our specific situation should drive our efforts’’

 

By: Lorrencia Nkrumah/citifmonline.com/Ghana