Government struggling to get IMF to sign off second US$600m of bailout – Bright Simons

The Vice President of policy think tank, IMANI-Africa, Bright Simons, has stated that government is struggling to get a visiting International Monetary Fund (IMF) team to sign off the second tranche of a US$3 billion bailout reached earlier this year.

Simons alleged in a tweet that the situation was being worsened by the recent verbal exchanges between the Bank of Ghana governor and opposition lawmakers who are calling for Governor Ernest Addison and his deputies to resign over mismanagement of the apex bank.

“The spat of words between Ghana's Central Bank governor & Opposition MPs (he calls them 'hooligans') couldn't have come at a worse time. With govt struggling to convince the IMF to sign off on the $600m tranche before they leave town rather than later in DC, such scenes don't help,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

The said meeting was happening at the time of the protest, hence the governor sent the BoG’s director in charge of security to receive the opposition petition.

The MPs refused the representative stressing that they wanted to hand over the petition to the governor in person even though the director had explained that Addison and his deputies were at the time in a meeting with the IMF team.

The Governor after Minority MPs staged a protest on October 3, 2023, to demand the resignation criticized the opposition lawmakers for their recent demonstration describing it as "completely unnecessary”.

He added that he would not resign as demanded by the Minority MPs.

The spat of words btwn Ghana's Central Bank governor & Opposition MPs (he calls them "hooligans") couldn't have come at a worse time. With govt struggling to convince the IMF to sign-off on the $600m tranche before they leave town rather than later in DC, such scenes don't help. pic.twitter.com/INdpFYUe0z

— Bright Simons (@BBSimons) October 5, 2023