- Dr Mark Assibey Yeboah, a former New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP for New Juaben South, has advised the government to consider going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for economic support.
- Speaking at the government’s town-hall meeting to discuss the E-Levy on Thursday (27 January 2022), the finance minister said the passage of the E-Levy will save the country from falling back on the IMF for financial assistance, which, he said, would be disastrous.
- "When you rely on international partners like the IMF, they control what you do and the end result is that they create hardship, your people suffer."
Issahaku Amidu Chinnia, deputy minister for sanitation and water resources has reiterated that returning to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for bailout will spell economic doom for Ghana.
He said the over-reliance on international support for any form of economic bailout will worsen the country’s economic situation.
Speaking at the government’s townhall meeting on the E-Levy on Monday (21 February 2022), Chinnia said “when you rely on international partners like the IMF, they control what you do and the end result is that they create hardship, your people suffer.”
“…But when you’re able to generate revenue within your country on your own, you’re not given parameters to which you operate. You operate the way you think will benefit the citizen”.
A choice to make
“And so, we have a choice to make, a choice to continue to rely on partners who will dictate how we’ll run our economy and so doing, will affect employment, will affect health, will affect everything. And a choice to increase revenue so that we can manage our economy in such a way that we don’t depend on them (international partners)”.
More demand for development, more taxes
“So, I think that it is important that as we demand more developments, more roads, more education, more employment, more health facilities, we as citizens must be willing to pay more so that we can support the government to undertake these developments,” he stated.
Run to IMF to salvage economy
Dr Mark Assibey Yeboah, a former New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP for New Juaben South, has advised the government to consider going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for economic support.
According to him, the finance minister should, as a matter of urgency “place a call to the IMF to help the government” rescue the struggling economy.
Speaking to Citi FM, Dr Assibey Yeboah said, “without a doubt, I think we should be placing a call to Washington if we haven’t really done that. We are just not going to ask for the funds just because E-Levy has been passed or not. E-Levy will just bring about GHC5 billion. We are in a deep hole of our tax revenue and facing difficulties, so going to the fund will give us some support.”
Returning to IMF disastrous
Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister for Finance, earlier said returning to the International Money Fund would not augur well for Ghana.
Speaking at the government’s town-hall meeting to discuss the E-Levy on Thursday (27 January 2022), the minister said the passage of the E-Levy will save the country from falling back on the IMF for financial assistance, which, he said, would be disastrous.
“When we were in the IMF programme, we couldn’t pay for nurses and teachers,” he said; “we couldn’t hire any more because there were restrictions on that. I mean, it’s just really thinking you can go back to Egypt.
“In a way, we have forgotten how difficult and tenacious that master from Washington was.
“So, we can deal with them for them to give us advice but we need not ever get into an IMF programme [again]. If we don’t do this E-Levy, we’re just pushing ourselves in a way that would potentially end up in such a disaster,” he said.
Nicholas Brown
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