Nana Akomea, a former Director of Communications for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has asked the citizenry to credit President Akufo-Addo for taking Ghana to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout.
Akomea, who now heads the State Transport Company (STC) says it takes a leader with vision to adopt President’s Akufo-Addo’s initiative of going to the Bretton Woods Institution, looking at the state of affairs at the time.
Despite touting itself as a proud nation who would not go to the IMF, then Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, made a u-turn to announce that things have fallen apart and until the IMF came in, Ghana’s economy was going to collapse.
The move, which has been condemned by many, especially considering the consequences on various aspects of the economy, according to Nana Akomea, deserves commendation.
During a one-on-one with Johnnie Hughes on 3FM’s Sunrise Thursday, June 06, 2024, Akomea noted that it was the failure of the realisation of the electronic transaction levy (E-levy) which the government proposed as its policy to effect the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ that led to the country returning to the IMF for the seventeenth time.
Akomea insists if the E-levy had materialised, there is no way the IMF would have been an option.
“The IMF thing is actually a plus for the government. The government says we are going to rely on our own strength, we are not going to kotow before these international institutions. And government says I’m bringing this new policy called e-levy, I’m hoping to get a billion cedis from this in a year. So let’s rely on our own strength. In the event the projections did not turn out as government projected, it shows bravery to say that ‘we wanted to go this way and not the IMF and we’ve gone that way. After two three months, it is not working so we have to go to the IMF’, that is real politics,” the former Director of Communications for the NPP defended.
He continued that “the IMF is just to help you balance your payments. But for your long term development, it is not the IMF. It is just a three-year programme.”
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