The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission team recently conducted a review of Ghana’s economy, and the Minority in Parliament claims that it was anticipated that the study would result in some semblance of progress.
The facts indicate that the situation is worse now than it will be in 2022, contrary to the IMF predictions.
Isaac Adongo, the Parliament’s ranking member on the finance committee, revealed this at a press conference on Monday, October 9, which was monitored by 1Family Radio.
“In the first place, the data makes it quite clear that the situation is worse today than it was last year,” Mr. Adongo said.
“And yet we would want to believe that last year was the peak period and that after the IMF in 2023 it will get better than last year, but the data suggest otherwise.”
This is in response to the findings of the second evaluation, which Stéphane Roudet, the IMF’s Chief of Mission, led and which were made public on Friday, October 6.
“The external position in general is stronger, and the currency has become much less volatile than what Ghana experienced at the end of last year, when it was a very challenging situation.’’
“So, clearly, there is a turnaround, there is an improvement, and signs of macroeconomic stability are now emerging,’’ Stéphane Roudet stated.
Mr. Adongo disputes this, asserting definitively that the economy is not turning around and characterizing the current condition of affairs as a lobbying effort.
“It has become necessary because it does appear to me that this IMF program is not a program that is targeted at doing the hard work to help the people of Ghana get out of the difficulty that we are in.’’
He furthered, “But it is one that for me appears to be more of a lobbyist activity, treated with kids’ gloves and a child who is not willing to take the bitter pill in order to heal faster, and all that has been going on is basically playing with the emotions and the livelihoods of Ghanaians and using PR to foster that.”
Instead of comparing mangoes to mangoes or pineapples to pineapples, the IMF team, in his opinion, preferred to compare mangoes with pineapples.
“You can’t take the end-year inflation of 2022 and compare it with any of the inflation other than December 2023. That is how you compare apples to apples,” he added, citing how in June 2022 inflation was 29.8 percent but 31.7 percent in June 2023 with the IMF program implemented.’’
“The inflation we are seeing today has different seasonal and cyclical pressures compared to that of December. In December, we all know the demand pressures; we know Christmas comes. There is a lot of pressure on the cedi because people are looking for foreign currency to stock for Christmas and all that. The inflation of now has not experienced that, so you can’t compare that to the inflation that would be attained in December,’’ he added.
Source: 1familyradio