IMF deal was well negotiated – Information Minister

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Minister of Information, claims that government did a very diligent negotiation in the IMF deal.

He has therefore taken a swipe at persons who have accused the government of failing to negotiate the $3 billion bailout deal secured from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

He was responding to claims made by Isaac Adongo, Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central, that the IMF deal was poorly negotiated.

“You will recall that when government announced sometime last year that it wanted to reach a staff-level agreement by the end of December, the suggestion was that, it could not be done, thankfully we were able to do it. When the government announced that we were hoping to conclude this deal around May, again, the view was that it can’t happen, but I think, every step of the way, we must give credit to the people of Ghana and the government of Ghana,” he said.

“The government of Ghana and the people of Ghana have actually done a very diligent negotiation with the Finance Minister leading the team. We have done a very good negotiation and the programme is described as a strong programme that leads the foundation for a robust recovery so rather our attention should be the need to ensure that we successfully implement the programme’s parameters and meet the programme’s targets so that the benefits accrue and not a new attempt to make arguments that the way it has been done so quickly, then it must have been a poor negotiation,” he added.