Government must come clean on its fiscal measures ahead of IMF board approval – Mike Cobblah

Chief Executive Officer of C_Energy Ghana, Mike Cobblah, says as the country awaits an International Monetary Fund (IMF) board approval, the government should continually court investors’ confidence.

He said this should be done through government’s transparency on measures being put in place to ensure that “by the time the IMF programme kicks in, we have put our house in order and the economy is on a certain trajectory to experience the kind of growth that we expect.”

According to him, a failure to adequately address the uncertainties of investors on government’s fiscal measures would be injurious to government-investor relations in the future.

Speaking in an interview, he said, “I think that’s the kind of dialogue that investors are expecting. If we don’t address that uncertainty people will still be waiting and will adopt a wait and see approach, and that’s what’s happening in the investment world.

“Most of the transactions that are happening currently or are on the table, in the pipeline, investors are waiting to see how the IMF discussions pans out and when we are able to reach the fiscal agreement. It’s important that we set ourselves a realistic timetable and work towards it.

“And whiles we do that in the intervening period, we actually address investors and tell them what measures we’re putting in place within our domestic setting to make sure that once we tidy up our debt restructuring and the IMF programme kicks in, the fiscal sciences are being tackled, what are the things that we’re doing to make sure that we bring back that investor confidence that is quite desired,” he suggested.