Executive Director of the Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA), Mensah Thompson, has raised an alarm that the financial misreporting and creative accounting that “we have been served with in the last 6years” is not coming to an end anytime soon.

According to him, the Ken Ofori-Atta cum Dr. Bawumiah-led Economic Management Team takes its financial misreporting to a whole new level by misreporting to the IMF yet again ahead of the new IMF program.

He noted that the IMF team was in town to engage Gov’t ahead of a debt sustainability analysis which would inform the type of program or bailout it would provide for Ghana.

“At that engagement, Government provided to the IMF a GDP figure of GHS590billion when its projected GDP for end of year 2022 was actually GHS509billion. We don’t know what the GHS81billion or 15% increase in GDP value is attributed to, considering the economic challenges we have encountered this year.

“Again, if your end of your projection in the 2022 budget is GHS509billion, how did Gov’t come by GHS590billion at the beginning of the third quarter? For those who don’t understand the significance of a bloated GDP, let me explain; it is the GDP figure that is used to calculate the debt to GDP ratio, what this means is that any increase in GDP would lead to a lower debt to GDP ratio which will be used to create the impression that Ghana is not debt distressed.”
Mensah Thompson

Inflated GDP figure to impact IMF decision

In a Facebook post, the ASEPA Boss further explained that with the current GDP value of GHS590billion, “our debt to GDP ratio would be 68% when actually our debt to GDP is over 90%”.

“This cosmetic 68% would be used to explain to the IMF that Ghana doesn’t need a debt restructuring and that its debt is actually sustainable when in fact, we all know it’s not.

“Secondly and most importantly, it is this same cosmetic GDP value of GHS590billion that would be used to calculate the Revenue to GDP ratio and by using GHS590billion as the new GDP value, our Revenue to GDP ratio comes to a paltry 14%.”
Mensah Thompson

Mensah Thompson explained that this 14% would be used to “back a false narrative to the IMF that the problem Ghana is facing is not corruption, reckless and wasteful expenditures but Revenue Generation and that it is Ghanaians who are not paying taxes”.

All this, he said, would inform the type of program the IMF would admit Ghana to, a program that emphasizes on Revenue Generation instead of cutting the wastefulness.

He warned that anyone who had a hope that an IMF program would bring about any changes in how this Country has been managed in the last 6 years should “brace yourself for a major disappointment”.

“The Government wants to do the same things that led us into this ditch, profligate expenditures, ostentatious spending and unwarranted largesse at the expense of the poor tax payers but most importantly, the imminent IMF program would be very aggressive on taxes because guess what the Government has told the IMF, it is not reckless but it is you who are not paying your taxes…!!”
Mensah Thompson