The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has asked the government not to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Their calls follow hints by a leading member of the NPP, Gabby Otchere-Darko, that the government was considering heading to the Bretton Woods institution after the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy) failed to accumulate projected revenue.
Secretary-General of the TUC, Dr. Yaw Baah, insists that an IMF programme is not the cure for Ghana’s economic woes.
“We have advised the government not to go to the IMF because IMF has no solution for Ghana. The government has been to IMF 16 times for IMF programmes, but we are where we are today. Therefore, that is not the solution. It is like saying this is not working but let us do more of it; it doesn’t make sense. We will be very surprised if the government goes to IMF,” he told 3news.
Meanwhile, economist, David Yaw Mordey, has urged the government to cut spending and increase tax production to create a financial cushion to assist the economy.
“The issue has to do with the fundamentals of our economy with respect to the exchange rate, Gross Domestic Product, inflation and then other indicators particularly inflation, and GDP is flourishing, and we are within the range of 3.3 to 4 per cent, inflation about 27 per cent to 30 per cent.
“So things are very hard in Ghana, but that doesn’t mean that we should be opting for IMF. We know that IMF comes with a lot of conditionalities. The conditionalities are not favourable to the ordinary Ghanaian. So the IMF should not be part of the equation.
“We go to the IMF for policy credibility. If in 2020 you overspent, the following year you try to scale it down. We have made the law, Fiscal Responsibility Act, which mandates you to be within a certain threshold. All you have to do is to reduce your consumption expenditure and expand your capital investment. That is the only way we can address the fundamental issues in the economy,” he said.
In a series of tweets on Monday, June 27, Mr Otchere-Darko said, “Am I against an IMF programme in principle? No”
“I am not for an IMF programme that throws peanuts at us but imposes conditions that will end up hurting the poor, jobs and businesses more. Covid-19 and War in Ukraine are not of Africa’s doing but more to our doom. A program that pretends it is all our doing is doomed to fail.”
“We do something that will inject confidence in our capacity to ride this heavy storm and that something should happen pretty quickly. Are you against an IMF programme?”
Discussions about an IMF programme have been revived due to high debt, low revenue, skyrocketing inflation and increasing cost of living.