According to former president John Dramani Mahama, the Akufo-Addo administration is forced to approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to address its economic problems.
According to Mr. Mahama, IMF programs include fiscal consolidation and a need for budgetary restraint, which can result in some improvement and a rebound on the macroeconomic front.
“Some regime actors have been talking in the last few days about a possible or approaching IMF program. Our economic issues are so complex and wide-ranging that this government essentially has no other viable choice.
“IMF programs come with fiscal consolidation and insistence on fiscal discipline which can lead to some recovery and improvements on the macro-economic front.
“This government has however so mismanaged our economy and left it in such a terrible state that fiscal consolidation alone will not do the trick,” the 2020 presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) said at a forum in Accra on Thursday June 30.
On Monday June 27, leading member of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Gabby Otchere Darko said that in principle, he was not against the IMF programme.
Gabby explained that he is not for an IMF programme that gives the country peanuts but imposes conditions that will end up hurting the poor, jobs and businesses more.
In series of tweets he said “Am I against an IMF program in principle? No”
“I am not for an IMF program that throws peanuts at us but imposes conditions that will end up hurting the poor, jobs and businesses more. Covid-19 and War in Ukraine are not of Africa’s doing but more to our doom. A program that pretends it is all our doing is doomed to fail.”
“We do something that will inject confidence in our capacity to ride this heavy storm and that something should happen pretty quickly. Are you against an IMF program?”
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has insisted that Ghana would not go back to the IMF for support.
In his view, the government has put in place measures including salary cuts and others, and also programmes to deal with the fundamental issues affecting the economy.
Mr Ofori-Atta said these when he was asked by expatriate journalist whether Ghana would consider going back to the IMF, at a press conference in Accra on Thursday May 12.
He said while answering the question that “All the white folks are just interested in us coming in the IMF programme. I always wonder why.”
“We are members of the fund; there are two major points of interventions that we have from the fund. One being the advise that we get because of the phenomenal expertise that the fund has and then secondly, these programme interventions which bring us some resources.
“I think, if you see from the budget that we constructed for 2022 and the subsequent announcement that we have done, clearly, the issue of Ghana having the capacity to think through the consolidation exercise exist. Also discipline itself with regards to the 20 per cent, etc, that we have shown clearly.”
He further indicated that “We have committed to not going back to the fund because in terms of the interventions and policy we are right there, the fund knows that we are completely in the right direction. The issue is, validating the programmes that we have put in place and then, in my view, supporting us to find alternative ways of financing or re-financing our debt, reprofiling it.”
