Chief Operations Officer at the Dalex Finance, Mr Joe
Jackson has said that Ghana needs to go back to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In his view,
the country will not be able to resolve its fiscal challenges without going to
the Bretton Wood institution for support.
Speaking in
interview with TV3’s Komla Adom on the mid day news on Tuesday June 21, Mr
Jackson said “I think the IMF is the most option to check the excesses we face.
“Our budget
deficit is huge, there is no fiscal space, we need the IMF to support us so
that the foreign markets and the flow of funds will be maintained. I honestly
don’t see how we will get round this without going to the IMF.”
Another
economist, Dr Adu Sarkodie also said recently that Ghana is likely to return to
the IMF for support.
He says if
this finally happens, it will affect some of government’s programmes such as
the free Senior High School, Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) and others.
“We are
likely to go back to the IMF. I don’t like it when we go there because of the
conditionality. They may ask us to cancel Free SHS, NABCO, and all that but
this is the time we need all these social interventions,” Dr Adu Sarkodie told
3FM on Thursday June 16.
The Finance
Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, recently 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.”
Source:3news