IMF: All fail is fail, no one’s failure was better - Kofi Bentil blasts NPP, NDC

Government begins formal engagement with IMF

NPP, NDC engage in politics of equalization over IMF decision

Gabby Otchere-Darko says Mahama's IMF bailout can't be compared to NPP's

Vice President of IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil, has chastised the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) over the comparison of records leading to both parties seeking an IMF bailout in their respective tenures.

Mr. Bentil in a social media post stated that any decision to seek an IMF bailout programme was tantamount to failure.

To this end, he said both the NPP and NDC have all failed having opted to subscribe to an IMF programme in 2015 and 2022 respectively.

Consequently, the lawyer said one failure and the subsequent turn to IMF cannot be said to be better than the other’s.

“NDC Please pipe down!! Every resort to IMF is a failure! NDC failed and NPP also failed. No one should pretend one failure was better. Of course those who failed after condemning the earlier failure deserve opprobrium!! but all fail is fail,” Kofi Bentil wrote on his Facebook page.

President Akufo-Addo on July 1 ordered Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta to begin formal engagements with the IMF.

In a statement signed by Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the engagement will be to invite the Fund to support an economic program put together by government.

"Among other things, the government says the IMF support will provide “balance of payment support as part of a broader effort to quicken Ghana’s build back in the face of challenges induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, and recently, the Russia-Ukraine crisis.”

While the decision has elicited divergent views, both political parties have begun politics of equalization.

For a leading member of the NPP, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, the NPP's decision to seek an IMF programme cannot be compared to the term of the NDC under John Mahama as it did not have to battle with a global crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

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