A deputy Finance Minister under erstwhile Mahama’s administration, George Kweku Ricketts-Hagan says he felt the IMF’s engagement with Ghana is a mere formality that may not yield any result.
Mr. Ricketts-Hagan says the preconditions that qualifies a state for a bailout is non-existent in Ghana.
During the Minority in Parliament’s meeting with the International Monetary Fund, the Cape Coast South legislator said he asked the Breton Woods Institute why they are engaging Ghana despite the reality that. Ghana’s debt sustainability is not favourable?
According to him, “the IMF is quite a bit of a diplomatic organisation. They are saying they’re now going to make an assessment of Ghana’s debt sustainability analysis. They can only determine Ghana is in a debt sustainability challenge or not.
“The next step after the debt sustainability analysis would be for us [Ghana] to restructure our debt and that is going to be a big issue,” he disclosed.
The MP noted the level of Ghana’s debt on the capital market would make it difficult for her to restructure her debts, a condition the country must be able to satisfy before the IMF considers a bailout.
So to him, the IMF know things wouldn’t work for Ghana but they have chosen to undertake mere formalities.
“When we went to the meeting I asked the IMF a question, that before they bailout any economy, that economy’s macroeconomic and debt sustainability should be very bad. They claim the Russian-Ukraine war and Covid has caused all these woes to the global economy, meaning macroeconomics of each other country is worse.
“Why is the IMF not in all these countries? Because our debt is not sustainable. So I asked the IMF that, you say you haven’t done debt sustainability analysis, so why are you here?,” he said on Maakye Wednesday, July 20, 2022.
Watch the video below from the 12th minute onwards to see the response the IMF gave him.
By Felix Anim-Appau|Onuaonline.com
