The flagbearer of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has vowed to introduce reforms to limit Ghana’s borrowing and ensure greater transparency in the country’s debt management if elected in 2024.

Central to his plan is amending the Public Financial Management Act to cap how much the country can borrow from external sources, and establishing an independent body to oversee national debt.

Speaking during a campaign rally in Dodowa in the Shai-Osudoku constituency of the Greater Accra region, on Monday, 16 September 16 2024, Mr. Mahama stressed the need for a structured approach to managing Ghana’s debt and criticized the current government’s lack of openness.

“There is no transparency in our debt management. The only time we hear how much we owe as Ghanaians is when the Minister of Finance is reading the budget and tells us what our debt-to-GDP is. NDC is going to change that,” Mr. Mahama told the crowd.

He explained that under an NDC government, the Debt Management Department within the Ministry of Finance would be transformed into an autonomous Debt Management Authority, mandated to publish quarterly updates on Ghana’s debt-to-GDP ratio.

“We are going to make the debt management department of the Finance Ministry a separate autonomous department. It will be a Debt Management Authority, and it will have a head who will be autonomous and publish every quarter what our debt-to-GDP numbers are,” Mr. Mahama stated.

The NDC flagbearer’s reforms also include limiting how much future finance ministers can borrow by amending the Public Financial Management Act to impose strict borrowing caps.

“We will change parts of the Public Financial Management Act and put a clause there on how much money a Finance Minister can borrow. So, if we agree that we should not borrow more than 60 per cent of GDP, then we will put it in the Public Financial Management Act so that no finance minister can come in future and borrow money as badly as he wants and leave a debt for the young people who are sitting here,” Mr. Mahama explained.