Be careful with IMF engagement, it does not guarantee support – Dr Assibey-Yeboah to government

Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah, former MP, New Juaben South, has cautioned that the current talks between the government of Ghana and official from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), does not guarantee the country will get a bailout.

According to him, the government needs to be careful in negotiating the program and also be transparent to ensure the

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“The fund went to Sri Lanka for 10 days, there was no agreement. So they coming here does not mean there is going to be a program, that is why I am saying, we have to slow things down with the rhetoric and the posturing.

“They (IMF) can come here and say ‘well if you aren’t ready to reveal all the data, to open all the books and come clean we are not going to do anything’. For example, energy sector debt, the last time we did an auditing of the debt in 2018, it was about $10bn there after we did the ESLA bond.

“What is the energy sector debt position right now? We have to know all of this and that is what they are going to ask for. So when they come in and don’t get the data they want and people are not transparent they will go back,” Dr Assibey-Yeboah explained in a Citi TV interview monitored by GhanaWeb.

Dr Assibey-Yeboah further indicated that the covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war are not solely responsible for Ghana’s economic woes.

“The good thing about having a fund programme is that we would have to open our books. So when the fund comes in, we would know the arrears situation for instance,” he noted.

Some delegation from the IMF arrived in Ghana to hold a series of meetings with government officials on Ghana’s economic recovery programme.

The Fund’s officials, led by Mission Chief for Ghana, Carlo Sdralevich, arrived in Ghana on Tuesday and held introductory deliberations with stakeholders including the Vice President, Dr Muhamudu Bawumia on July 6.

The meeting with the IMF centres around expenditure, market reserve management, domestic arrears, expenditure controls and fiscal reporting.

The team from the IMF is also expected to undertake a lot of data gathering and reconciliation; also look at the design of the e-levy, estimated yield, the mobilization measures and the nature of its implementation.

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