He said that the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government hastily left the programme even though it had not achieved its set financial targets.
In an interview with BBC’s Peter Okwoche, monitored by GhanaWeb, Simons added that this government is now going to the IMF for an "unfinished business.”
“Ghana (under the John Dramani Mahama administration) went to the IMF in 2015 due to a fall in commodity prices and other pressures; they had a three programme which ended in 2018 (and was extended to 2019). The plan was that certain massive reforms should have taken place in the economy.
“By the end of that period, those reforms had not been completed but Ghana (under Akufo-Addo’s government) was adamant that it had to leave the IMF programme,” the IMANI vice president explained.
He further stated that the posturing of the current government towards Mahama going for an IMF bailout created the notion that going to the IMF is a failure.
“This government has consistently linked going to the IMF with mismanagement of the economy and bad management in general.
“So, it became very difficult given those circumstances for them to make a beehive to the IMF; given the fact that politically, they have raised the stakes to a level where any U-turn could be interpreted as failure. That is more or less the issue,” he said.
Simons reiterated that the current economic crisis in Ghana is not only as a result of external factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia and Ukraine war, as the government has asserted but also because of poor management on the side of the government.
Watch Bright Simons’ full interview with BBC’s Peter Okoche below:
Meanwhile, GhanaWeb is accepting nominations for the prestigious GhanaWeb Excellence Awards – Youth Edition. Watch how you can nominate from the video below.
