Broadcaster, Bridget Otoo has on the back of President Akufo-Addo’s directive to Ken Ofori-Atta, to begin formal engagements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for an economic programme, taunted the finance minister for insisting in past Ghana would not return to the IMF.
The country’s economic situation has experienced severe challenges and calls for Ghana to turn to the IMF heightened. Ofori-Atta, however, on countless occasions, without equivocation, said the government will find other ways of handling the economy, insisting that IMF was not an option. He mentioned that some interventions and policies had been put in place by his government to rescue the economy.
“We are members of the fund; there are two major points of interventions that we have from the fund. One being the advice 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.”
“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,” the finance minister said in May 2022.
On July 1, 2022, however, the president directed his appointee to commence talks with the IMF. A statement issued by the Information Ministry said “This follows a telephone conversation between the President and the IMF Managing Director, Miss Kristalina Georgievs, conveying Ghana’s decision to engage with the Fund.”
“The engagement with the IMF will seek to provide balance of payment support as part of a broader effort to quicken Ghana’s build back in the face of challenges induced by the Covid-19 pandemic and, recently, the Russia Ukraine crises,” the statement added.
Reacting to the development, Bridget Otto who has been a fierce critic of the government tweeted one of the famous quotes of Ofori-Atta about the decision to not return to IMF. The journalist also took a dig at sympathisers of the NPP who always defend every action of the government.
