Ghana's IMF programme rushed, poorly negotiated - Minority Leader

Ghana is hoping to obtain a $3 billion IMF deal by the end of the first quarter of 2023. According to the finance minister, failure to obtain the deal by March will crash the economy.

But the Minority Leader in parliament, Cassiel Ato Forson, intimated that the deal with the IMF was rushed and poorly negotiated.

According to him, this is the fastest any country has undertaken an agreement with the Fund.

He, therefore, called on the government to set the example of cutting expenditures to encourage the approval of certain taxes in the 2023 budget.

“The budget statement does not look like a country that is embarking on fiscal consolidation. We will not allow you to engage in burden-shifting. Sow e are telling you if you want us to cut your loans, cut your taxes, cut first. Show us the way, show us the way that you are ready to share the burden with the people of Ghana before you call on us to approve your taxes. We won’t allow you to shift the burden to the ordinary Ghanaian,” he said on the floor of parliament on February 16, 2023.

He said, “this is the fastest a country has undertaken a debt restructuring This is one of the fastest agreements but it is the one that is mostly poorly negotiated because they rushed into it and didn’t constitute a proper strong team to be able to negotiate with the IMF and as a result, Ghana has had a bad deal.”

Here is the Cedi's performance as of February 20, 2023





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