A spokesperson for the Akufo-Addo government has said that the government will not allow the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to dictate conditionalities for it if it eventually seeks a bailout.
In what can be described as a beggar with choice hot air, Palgrave Boakye-Danquah who speaks on governance and security made the unsubstantiated claim that the government will make sure that the IMF conditionalities do not affect current social intervention programmes including Free SHS.
“We will ensure that it does not affect jobs,” he told Johnnie Hughes on TV3‘s New Day on Tuesday, June 28.
“We will ensure that it doesn’t affect Free SHS, we will ensure that it will not affect other social intervention programmes.”
Even so Mr. Boakye Danquah’s assurance dovetails into a strong indication that the Akufo-Addo government will soon go cap-in-hand begging for an IMF bailout after months of vowing not to return to the Fund.
He said that the government will have its own tailor-made solution when it approaches the IMF.
The government is already said to be holding crunch meetings over the IMF option, which many experts say is really the only option left to Ghana after the current government borrowed it into a debt conundrum and squandered the money mostly on corrupt stealing.
Senior Presidential Advisor, Yaw Osafo Maafo, is said to be already leading a crunch meeting of six ministers to assess the impact of the economic mitigation measures announced in March this year.
The ministers participating in this three-day engagement are Minister of Food and Agriculture Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister of Transport Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Decentralisation Dan Kwaku Botwe and caretaker Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection Cecilia Abena Dapaah.
The rest are Minister for Trade and Industry Alan Kyerematen and Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah.