Executive director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah, has expressed his reservation about finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta’s view on the impact of the IMF bailout on the country’s economy.

According to him, the finance minister has lost credibility when it comes to the management of the economy. He revealed that overtime, Mr Ofori-Atta’s decision has negatively impacted the country and his spearheading of the IMF deal is ironical under the circumstance.

“… The message can only be credible as the messenger and in this case, I wouldn’t give any credibility to it… The conduct, acts, speeches, statements that have been made overtime certainly has discredited our finance minister; it is not for me to say… It is his own actions, statements and the way he has managed the economy that has discredited him… I wouldn’t place any premium on whatever he said in terms of the economy and how well we are going to do and are doing…”
Sulemana Braimah

Mr Sulemana stated that he is not surprised about the turn of events in the country’s economy. However, he said the only “strange thing” is having Mr Ofori-Atta managing the economy.

“For me, it’s amazing we still have Ken Ofori-Atta being our finance minister. It’s a major surprise that the government and President Akufo-Addo still keeps Mr Ofori-Atta as our finance minister. I don’t know what our reasons are given what we know of parliament demanding his removal, the vote of censure on him…
“This person is in charge of our economy and still making promises. We cannot be gambling like that; yes, the IMF bailout which they denied when people were talking about the economy being in crisis, the IMF money has come and certainly it will improve our national reserves, have some impact and cushion on the economy and for me that is no achievement.”
Sulemana Braimah

Ghanaians urged to brace themselves for impact of bailout

Furthermore, the MFWA explained that although he is not an economist, the impact of the bailout is expected and the implications Mr Ofori-Atta touted in his statement would have been realized. To this end, he highlighted that it does not take any “magic” to achieve it.

“Once the money comes in, your international reserves will improve and the IMF would have given you monies with conditionalites. He’s talking about conditionalites that are getting improved on the fiscal side, but I’m sure that very soon we are going to talk about conditions that affect people negatively in terms of the conditions that are attached to the bailout.”
Sulemana Braimah

Mr Sulemana suggested the finance minister focuses on the real impact the bailout will have on Ghanaians instead of the seeming skin-deep achievements.

“So, if I were in government, I would rather be working towards mitigating people’s apprehension, the eventual impact on people, rather than the usual thing of touting credentials and things that would not have any implications on the people.”
Sulemana Braimah

The finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, revealed that the approval of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme has started yielding positive outcomes. In light of this, urged Ghanaians to put their shoulders to the wheel to implement far-reaching reforms.

He cited the positive outcomes to include decreases in the rate of inflation and treasury bills, improvements in foreign reserve and current account positions, but stressed that “the real work of adjustments, re-alignments and the return to a path of steady economic growth has just begun”.

The Finance Minister said the reform programme, the Post COVID-19 Programme for Economic Growth (PC-PEG), now supported by the three-year Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement with the IMF, was built on clear targets, strong policy and structural measures.

He pointed out that the programme was to promote a credible fiscal consolidation programme, anchored by strong domestic revenue mobilisation and high spending efficiency.