Government has categorically stated that it will under no circumstance renegotiate the 3-year International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout programme.
[contextly_sidebar id=”Fu9Cdq7iBsXt1guuvXiZksuQoJaTK62s”]The Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper pointed out that renegotiating the terms of the bailout at this point is impossible since Ghana is already on track.
He explained that the bailout is not “an imposition and I believe we are on track in the first review so are they calling for a renegotiation at this stage? It will not be helpful.”
In February this year, government secured US$940 million deal from the IMF to help the country turn around the ailing economy by helping to stabilise the cedi and reduce the fiscal deficit.
Some economic analysts have also indicated that the money is not enough to fix the economy while some civil society groups and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) have called for a renegotiation of the programme, suggesting that the macro-economic targets are overly ambitious and will bring hardship on Ghanaians.
Last week, the Executive Director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), Professor Kwadwo Kusi advised government to take a second look at the programme because according to him, sticking to the programme in its current form will be problematic, unless the macro-economic fundamentals are improved tremendously.
But on the same day, the IMF in a statement indicated that the programme is on track and commended the country’s performance after the first review.
The leader of the IMF team, Joël Toujas-Bernaté stated that “the programme is on track, with all performance criteria met except for the ceiling on central bank financing to the government which was technically missed by a small margin.”
In an interview with Citi News, Seth Terkper insisted the IMF programme contains only home grown solutions and warned that if Ghana renegotiates the terms, the nation could become like Greece. “I think we can learn from what is going on in Greece. It could be applicable to us,” he said.
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By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana