NDC Rejected HIPC - Rawlings

London (UK) - Ex-President Rawlings has disclosed that his government rejected the HIPC initiative because it was considered inimical to the interest of the people of Ghana. He told a Law Doctoral Student in the UK that ''Contrary to your assertion that Ghana was a ''star pupil'', the PNDC went to the IMF/World Bank with our own carefully crafted development programme. At every stage where they tried to impose unacceptable solutions, we objected and explained our side of the problem''.

''They were a few occasions when we walked out of meetings and they had to plead with us to come back. At first, there were some rather ludicrous confrontations. For example, our request for funding to develop grain storage facilities in order to ensure food stability was turned down on the grounds that it would ‘interfere with market forces’. So we obtained funding elsewhere''.

But with time, we were able to soften the rigid stance of the lending institutions and make them more sensitive to our needs.


The ex-President said between 1984 and 2000, his government made enormous economic strides. But in the late 1990’s world petroleum prices soared whilst gold and cocoa crashed. ''Our development plans were thrown away and inflation climbed to around 40% just before the 2000 elections''.

Rawlings said contrary to efforts to blame these developments on bad management, corruption and siphoning of state funds; it was simply another example of the vulnerability of countries such as Ghana to external forces.


He also noted that long before the 2000 elections, pressure was put on Ghana to accept the HIPC status. ''Cabinet, after carefully weighing all the potential benefits and negative aspects of accepting such a status, rejected it. It was the present government which decided to accept it'', the former President added.