Pressure group, OccupyGhana, has revealed that government’s decision to seek financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of Ghanaians.

According to OccupyGhana, government would have no need of the “IMF if the government was serious about recovering these lost and stolen monies”, and plugging the holes that allowed them to be lost or stolen in the first place.

Contained in a statement, the group noted that when the 2018 Fiscal Responsibility Act was passed, it was concerned whether that Act would indeed impose the kind of fiscal responsibility and discipline that Ghana needed. Owing to this, OccupyGhana highlighted that the group wrote a detailed letter to the Finance Minister on 29th January 2019, to inquire which steps were being taken to ensure that there was real control of excessive government expenditure.

Like almost all Ghanaians, OccupyGhana expressed that it had been “blindingly obvious” for a while that the government would have to return to the IMF. Despite having foreknowledge of the issue, it stated that government’s formal announcement of its the return to IMF is “spectacularly remarkable because it is after we boldly announced the ‘Ghana Without Aid’ aspiration”.

“That is why this return to the IMF for a ‘paltry’ $2B leaves a bitter taste in our mouths. We would not be submitting ourselves to this forced and humiliating ‘Ghana [is not yet] beyond aid’ position if we had prevented the losses and thefts in the first place… How credible is this return to the IMF, when the monies we seek, sit comfortably in the bank accounts and pockets of those who caused us to lose the monies or who stole our monies?”
OccupyGhana

Commenting on a statement made by Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, that Ghana would be seeking about $2B from the IMF, the pressure group questioned whether that was all the country needs “to tide us over the mess” that it finds itself in.

“And do we have to go scurrying to the IMF to provide that, when from the Auditor-General’s Reports, calculated from 2016 to 2020, the amount of monies lost or stolen is GHS47,945,579,875? In dollar terms, that is almost three times the $2B we are going for.”
OccupyGhana

OccupyGhana expressed that the framers of the country’s constitution had sufficient foresight on these matters and therefore entrusted the Auditor-General to, beyond merely conducting audits and producing journalistic reports, disallow wrongful expenditure and surcharge people who either cause losses or steal our monies.

To remedy the situation, OccupyGhana emphasized that the Auditor-General must immediately resume disallowances and surcharges. It further demanded that the Attorney-General enforces the disallowances and surcharges, including taking criminal action, as also demanded by the Supreme Court.