IMF deal has not failed – Terpker

Finance Minister, Seth Terkper has stated that the ongoing negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have not been derailed in anyway as speculated by some sections of the media.

He said three rounds of negotiations- two in Ghana and one in Washington- have so far been held with the Fund since Ghana formally requested for policy and credit support from the IMF in August 2014,.

Mr. Terpker, who was speaking at a recent press conference in Accra, said government was on track with the negotiations with IMF.

He revealed that a meeting would soon be held in the coming weeks to finalize a draft Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) for submission to the IMF Executive Board for approval.

“There are strong domestic policy underpinnings in the negotiations,” he said.

Touching on the ongoing negotiations on the 2015 minimum wage and base pay, Mr Terkper said ideally negotiations should have been concluded before the presentation of the annual budget.

He however said Organized Labour, employers and government were working to conclude the negotiations as soon as possible.

Mr. Terpker said in order to prevent fiscal slippages from the wage bill, government has since 2013 been implementing measures aimed at controlling the wage bill and improving payroll management, including the introduction of the electronic salary payment voucher (ESPV) system to reduce the incidence of ghost workers on government payroll and periodic audits to streamline the payroll.

He hinted that a Human Resource Management System (HRMS) was being developed to address incidence of ghost names and other payroll problems in the public service.