In an ironic turn of the table, former President John Dramani Mahama has cautioned the Akufo-Addo government to be cautious in how it spends the US$1 billion loan facility the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved for Ghana under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF).
“Our economy has revealed from this COVID-19 stress test that it is still fragile and we need to be prudent in how we manage going forward. We must also be diligent in how we apply the US$1 billion facility as the various tranches are released,” ex-President Mahama wrote on his Facebook page today.
While in power, he was a recipient of a similar caution from the Akufo Addo led New Patriotic Party (NPP), albeit harsh criticism for saddling Ghana with crafty IMF conditionalities when the then National Democratic Congress (NDC) secured some US$900 million credit facility from the IMF.
The NPP then promised to exit all IMF programmes and rely on internal policies to generate much-needed funds. The Akufo Addo government in April 2019.
However, the current facility sourced from the IMF is the same quantum of what the Mahama administration secured from the IMF around 2015.
The Executive Board of IMF announced the approval of the loan on Monday, April 13, 2020.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is already impacting Ghana severely. Growth is slowing down, financial conditions have tightened, and the exchange rate is under pressure. This has resulted in large government and external financing needs. The authorities have timely and proactively responded to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana and support affected households and firms,” the IMF noted in a statement.