Ofori-Atta’s Deception Continues: Handpicks 5-member committee to negotiate with IMF

A Five-Member Committee will lead stakeholder engagement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta has said.

Critics have described the move as curious, because, this was supposed to have been done long before Ghana opted for the retrogressive IMF programme after the Akuffo Addo administration collapsed the economy with corruption, high inflation and unsustainable public debt.

According to the critics, since an IMF programme would mean a dramatic restructuring of Ghana’s economy and effectively affect the banking, public and private sectors, the government should have launched widespread consultation before the hasty rush to the IMF.

But, the government waved off civil society organisations that suggested broad-based consultations, with an arrogant Finance Minister pushing the deception that the Ghanaian economy was strong enough not to seek an IMF restructuring programme.

However, barely a month after his empty boast, the dire economic collapse forced the Akufo Addo administration and the Finance Minister to run to the IMF to save it.

Hence, the five-member committee is an unfortunate afterthought, critics say.

“The announcement of the Committee Members will be made in the coming days and they will immediately get to work to engage key stakeholders in the financial services sector, addition to ongoing engagements with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), social partners (labour unions, employers, and FBOs), academia, industry professionals, and the leadership of Parliament,” the Finance Minister told a press conference on Wednesday.

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff team, led by Stéphane Roudet, Mission Chief for Ghana, is in Accra, currently holding discussions with the Ghanaian authorities on policies and reforms that could be supported by an IMF lending arrangement.

The IMF Mission is billed to cover a period of 10 days. Ofori Atta was upbeat that it “will be fast-tracked to ensure that key aspects of the programme are reflected in the 2023 Annual Budget Statement in November 2022.”

The most recent IMF debt sustainability analysis, conducted in 2021, found Ghana at a high risk of debt distress and vulnerable to rising debt servicing costs. Interest costs have climbed since then, Fitch Ratings noted last week when it downgraded Ghana’s debt to CC, a junk status.

The Minister further noted it will welcome all contributions from the public debate, however, he was quick to add that Ghanaians must be careful to build and not tear down the nation in the consensus building.

The opposition largely holds the key to an expedited IMF deal now as reorganization of the nation’s liabilities would require approval from parliament, where there is a turf war in numbers that has simmered since the inception of the 8th parliament.