Every loan tells the truth eventually; the only question is whether it arrives as a bridge or a burden.The 2025 numbers challenge one of Africa’s most persistent economic misconceptions. Global public debt stood at almost 94% of GDP: Japan’s exceeded 200%, the United Kingdom’s was above 100%, Singapore carried exceptionally high gross debt while remaining a major creditor with vast public assets, and South Africa remained close to 78%. Yet debt distress is profoundly unequal.The difference is not simply how much a country borrows, but the currency, cost, maturity and credibility of that debt, and whether borrowing expands tomorrow’s ability to repay. Ghana’s recent debt crisis should teach a deeper lesson: debt is neither development nor damnation, but a financial instrument, and the real question is what a nation does with the money before the repayment date arrives.There is a peculiar moment in economic debate when somebody announces a country’s debt-to-GDP ratio and the room behaves as though a doctor has delivered a terminal diagnosis. Debt is 70%: silence. Debt is 100%: panic. Then someone discovers a country with debt exceeding 150% that appears neither bankrupt nor preparing to auction its parliament, and confusion enters the room.What matters is not simply borrowing, but demonstrating to lenders and citizens that a country possesses the productive capacity, institutional credibility and fiscal discipline to service what it borrows. According to the IMF’s April 2026 Fiscal Monitor, global public debt reached 93.9% of GDP in 2025, about 108% across advanced economies, with Japan’s gross debt at approximately 206.5%, the United Kingdom’s at about 102.3%, and South Africa’s at about 77.8%, while Singapore’s was around 173%, though it also possesses very large public financial assets and reserves.A debt-to-GDP ratio cannot by itself tell you whether a country is financially healthy, any more than a mortgage balance tells you whether someone is wealthy or bankrupt. You also need to see the house, the income, the interest rate, the assets, and what the borrowed money was used to create.Debt is not the disease; sometimes it is the Medicine, and sometimes the PoisonDebt is an instrument. A household borrowing to buy a productive asset is not equivalent to one borrowing repeatedly for consumption it cannot sustain. A country may borrow to build ports, railways and universities that expand productive capacity for decades, while another borrows for expenditure whose returns were never seriously calculated.As NyansaKasa (Words of Wisdom) puts it, debt is like fire: in the kitchen, it can cook tomorrow’s meal; on the curtains, it can burn tomorrow’s house.Ghana Has Already Paid Tuition for This LessonGhana’s debt-to-GDP ratio reached 92.4% during the 2022 crisis, amid loss of capital market access and a depreciating currency, prompting restructuring supported by an IMF programme. By 2025, the picture had improved substantially, with total public debt declining from 61.8% of revised GDP at end-2024 to 45.5% by November 2025. These figures deserve recognition but not amnesia. The lesson is not never to borrow again, but to borrow better, govern it better and invest it better.Why Can Some Rich Countries Carry More Debt?Part of the answer lies in institutional credibility, monetary sovereignty, deep capital markets, the ability to borrow in one’s own currency and accumulated assets.A country borrowing heavily in a foreign currency carries a different risk from one borrowing in a currency it issues, since a sharp depreciation can explode the domestic burden of foreign debt without a single additional dollar borrowed. As NyansaKasa (Words of Wisdom) might put it, two people may carry identical sacks, but one contains feathers and the other stones.Singapore illustrates the point well. Its gross debt ratio, around 173% of GDP, could suggest it is drowning. It is not, since its government issues securities partly to develop its domestic debt market and invest the proceeds rather than simply financing deficits, holding substantial assets alongside a 2025 current account surplus of 16.7% of GDP.Comparing its debt mechanically with an indebted developing economy is like comparing two borrowers of a million dollars while ignoring that one owns assets worth several million. As NyansaKasa (Words of Wisdom) puts it, never judge a borrower only by the size of the loan; ask what is sitting on the other side of the balance sheet.Japan’s debt exceeding 200% of GDP often appears in African arguments as evidence that debt does not matter, a dangerous conclusion, since Japan possesses a sophisticated economy, deep financial markets and substantial domestic savings. African economies cannot argue that because Japan owes more than 200%, an 80% ratio is fine; no more than someone on a modest salary should apply for a mortgage because a billionaire holds one. As NyansaKasa (Words of Wisdom) cautions, never copy another person’s debt until you have also copied their income.The Real Question is What the Debt BuiltThis should become Africa’s obsession. Suppose a country borrows five billion dollars. Five years later, what exists because of that debt? More reliable electricity and export industries, or mainly expenditure whose benefits disappeared before the first repayment fell due? Productive infrastructure can expand the economy from which repayment will come, while debt used for consumption gaps merely moves today’s difficulty into tomorrow. As NyansaKasa (Words of Wisdom) puts it, if your grandchildren must repay the loan, they should at least inherit the bridge. Banks assess whether they can recover their money; governments must assess whether citizens receive value.Debt service compounds the problem. Two countries can share the same debt-to-GDP ratio yet face very different burdens, one borrowing cheaply over thirty years and another expensively over seven. Their ratios look identical, but their fiscal realities do not. As NyansaKasa (Words of Wisdom) puts it, debt becomes dangerous when yesterday starts eating tomorrow’s breakfast.Africa Must Stop Borrowing in Political TimeInfrastructure may last thirty years, and debt may mature over twenty, but politicians face elections every four or five years, creating temptation to borrow now, build something visible and leave the repayment schedule in somebody else’s folder. Debt governance must transcend partisan politics, linked to priorities that survive electoral cycles; otherwise one administration begins a project, and the next abandons it, by which time the original loan may have developed grandchildren.A genuine beyond aid philosophy does not mean rejecting international partnerships, since no serious economy develops in isolation. It means building sufficient productive capability, revenue and savings that external assistance becomes supplementary rather than existential. Africa will continue borrowing, and should, but strategic borrowing should strengthen the economy so future borrowing becomes easier to service and available on better terms. Borrowing should finance capability, not dependency.What Must ChangeAfrica needs a far more rigorous sovereign borrowing culture. Governments should publish clear economic rationales for major loans showing expected returns and repayment sources, while debt offices and parliamentary committees should have the capability to interrogate assumptions rather than merely approve totals. Governments should publish a generational balance sheet answering two questions: what do we owe, and what did we build?A Warning Worth RememberingHere is the warning every finance ministry eventually learns, usually at the cost of a currency crisis rather than a classroom lesson. A loan spent without a plan does not vanish. It simply changes its name to debt service and multiplies quietly while everyone admires the ribbon at the commissioning ceremony. Unproductive debt is patient. It always collects.A Reminder Worth KeepingAnd here is the reminder. A debt-to-GDP ratio is one instrument on a very large dashboard. Reading only that single dial, while the fuel gauge and the road map go unchecked, is precisely how competent drivers still crash. Borrowing is not the enemy of a nation’s future. An unexamined instrument panel is.The Final Inconvenient TruthThe 2025 numbers should permanently end the simplistic argument that high debt-to-GDP automatically means economic failure. The same figures cited above, spanning Japan, the United Kingdom, Singapore and South Africa, do not make these economies equivalent, because debt-to-GDP is a warning light, not the entire engine diagnosis. Ghana’s own experience should deepen this conversation, having moved from severe distress towards substantially improved indicators in 2025, though lasting success depends on whether fiscal discipline endures beyond recovery.The objective cannot merely be to reduce debt, since a country can have little debt and remain poor, nor to borrow because richer countries borrow more. The objective must be a productive, resilient economy capable of using debt intelligently and servicing it sustainably.As NyansaKasa (Words of Wisdom) puts it, a loan is not prosperity; it is borrowed time and borrowed money waiting to discover whether wisdom was present when the agreement was signed.Unproductive borrowing, not borrowing itself, is the danger. Debt used wisely can help build the road to prosperity; debt used carelessly becomes the tollbooth at which future generations keep paying for a journey they never made. Borrow when it makes strategic sense, but make certain tomorrow’s citizens can see, touch and benefit from what today’s leaders built with the money.About the AuthorIng. Professor Douglas K. Boateng is a strategist in governance, industrialisation and supply chains, and serves as a professional chairperson, an international Chartered Director (UK) and a Chartered Engineer (UK). A Pan-Africanist and social entrepreneur at heart, he has spent his career working across public institutions, corporate boards and industrial policy, in Africa and beyond, guided by the conviction that strong institutions are built one honest decision at a time. His contributions to industry and academia have been recognised with more than six lifetime achievement awards throughout his career. He is the founder of NyansaKasa (Words of Wisdom), a collection of daily aphorisms he has written and shared since late 2019, distilling decades of experience advising governments, boards and enterprises on governance, accountability and institutional resilience into words meant to challenge and to endure. He convenes the Boardroom Governance Summit, Africa’s largest boardroom-focused summit, and writes a widely read weekly op-ed series titled “Inconvenient Truth” and “What Is Wrong With Us”, featured on some of the region’s leading digital media platforms. Professor Boateng can be reached via LinkedIn or at info@panavest.com.