Akufo-Addo wrong on IMF claim – Ato Forson

Claims by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that the government of Ghana under former President John Mahama missed all the targets set for it by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the $918million three-year extended credit facility are inaccurate, Cassiel Ato Forson, a former Deputy Minister of Finance, has said.

Mr Akufo-Addo, while delivering his maiden State of the Nation address on Tuesday February 21, said: “In fact, virtually all the targets under the IMF programme, as of December 2016, have been missed.

“The IMF programme negotiated was ostensibly to restore fiscal discipline, debt sustainability, and increase economic growth. It should be recalled that at the time Ghana entered into the IMF programme to restore fiscal discipline, the fiscal deficit was 10.2% of GDP. It is very clear, therefore, that the Mahama government did not achieve the objectives set out in the programme,” the president said.

However, speaking to the media a few minutes after the president’s address, Mr Forson, who is Member of Parliament for Ajumako Enyan Essiam, said: “IMF is yet to conduct a review of Ghana’s programme. The president is not IMF – I am questioning the fact that he said we have missed every single target. I am questioning that fact.

“We cannot miss every target, it is for the IMF to come for a review and decide. Until the IMF comes for a review and the final numbers are put out there that we have missed every single benchmark under the IMF programme, I will disagree with that fact.

"I am telling you that I am not aware that the International Monetary Fund had conducted a review of Ghana’s fiscal position as at 2016 and the fact that under the programme all the performance criteria , both structural and numerical, we have, as a country, failed all of them.”