You need to go through reports to understand economic figures - IMF Country Rep

The Country Representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to Ghana Dr. Albert Touna Mama has said that economic figures are generated from reports and that one needs to read full reports to understand different economic figures which have been presented.

Speaking on Joy FM's news analysis programme News File on Saturday to clarify allegations of falsification of figures to the IMF by the government, the IMF representative rejected the allegation, saying the government did not misreport figures to the IMF, but rather, the IMF generated its figures from data (report) the government presented to it.

According to Fact Check Ghana and the opposition NDC, the government of Ghana had in its budgets to Parliament for 2018 and 2019 presented fiscal deficits of 3.0% and 4.4% of GDP but changed the figures to 7.0% and 7.5% of GDP to the IMF for 2018 and 2019 respectively.

For Gross International Reserve, Fact Check Ghana and the NDC also alleged that government quoted 6,800 and 8,100 for 2018 and 2019 in its budget to Parliament but changed the figures to 5,317 and 6,634 for the same period respectively to the IMF.

But the IMF Country representative noted that figures they published in their statements for fiscal deficit and gross international reserve were figures they generated themselves from reports they received from the government, which contained discussions and explanations on both sets of figures.

He also expressed the belief that the budget statements presented to Ghanaians by the government similarly discusses and offers explanations on figures.

"These statements (IMF's figures) are at the back of a report," said the IMF Country Rep.

"When you go through these reports, all these discrepancies are discussed and I believe that the budget statements also goes into these discrepancies."

"So you cannot go through these reports and at the end of the report compare apple and peers. You need to go through the reports and understand what are the figures that have been presented."

While the IMF calculated its fiscal deficit without financial sector payments and energy sector payments, the government did so with the two payments. Similarly, the IMF calculated the gross international reserve without the heritage and stabilization fund, while the government's method of calculating added the two.

But Dr. Albert Touna Mama said nothing was hidden by the government and that it is aware of the reason for the government's methodology as captured in the report they received and the budget statements.

"When it comes to the data we received that we worked with, in this debate, there is nothing new that we did not know about."

Asked whether it is the IMF's preference that the government must include financial sector payments and energy sector payments when preparing financial reports, the IMF country director said the IMF doesn't necessarily need to have a preference.

"We don't need to have a preference," he said.

The IMF rep added that it is not necessarily wrong for the government not to include certain elements in determining certain indicators in some instances.

He cited an example of an agreement the IMF had with the government to set aside financial sector payments in determining fiscal deficit at some point under the Ghana-IMF program, which ended in 2019, because the financial sector payment was not anticipated during the original design of the programme.

"For example during the program that expired in April 2019, when the issue of the financial sector came up, because initially in the design of the program, this is something that was not anticipated, and the program aimed to achieve some fiscal target, a decision was made that the financial sector really needed to be taken care of."

"And if you really want a true picture of the fiscal effort that the government is making, we need to strip out financial sector cost. Because this is a necessary action so that you can generate economic quotes in the future so we agreed on that."

"On the financial sector payment, we agreed to put them aside and just measure the fiscal effort without financial sector cost."