You will soon praise the NPP for going to IMF – Akoto tells Ghanaians
Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, says Ghanaians should “calm down” and wait for the outcome of the engagement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
According to the NPP stalwart, Ghanaians will soon appreciate and praise the Akufo-Addo government for going to the IMF.
“Ghanaians will soon praise us for going to the IMF. The IMF is not a stranger that we are going to beg, we are prominent African members of the Fund and they are there to advise the government. The president in his wisdom has decided it’s about time we spoke to them and we are going to speak to them. The terms we will bring is the most important thing,” he said.
Dr. Afriyie Akoto further reiterated that Ghanaians should rather be concerned with conditionalities that will come with Ghana’s engagement with the Fund.
Also explaining the rationale behind the NPP going to the IMF, the Agric Minister said, the government’s decision to go to the Fund can be blamed on Covid-19 and the Russian-Ukraine war which, according to him, has disrupted everything in the country.
He added that the grounds on which the previous administration (NDC) went to the IMF are far different from the current situation.
“There have been two unprecedented historical events in the last two years, one of which is global Covid. Since 1919 there has never been a global outbreak of a disease of that nature and we suffered that,” he emphasized.
“Then we had this European War which has never happened since 1939 which has disrupted everything in the country,” he added.
“So you cannot compare the situation between the last time we went to the IMF to what we are doing now,” he told Nhyira FM in an interview.
President Akufo-Addo, on Friday, June 1, instructed the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta to commence formal engagements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to support the country’s economy.
The move has since generated mixed reactions and controversy because the NPP government had told Ghanaians they would apply home-grown solutions to the country’s economic problems rather than go to the IMF for support.