IMF: Austerity will be unbearable – Bokpin

The next two years will be a difficult period for Ghanaians if the programme that Ghana is seeking under the International Monetary Fund(IMF) is finally approved due to the measures that are going to be announced, a Professor at the University of Ghana Business School, Godfred Bokpin, has said.

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He stated categorically that the austerity that is coming along with the IMF programme will be unbearable.

Speaking on the Ghana Tonight show with Alfred Ocansey on TV3 Tuesday Octovver 11, he said ” Take this, the next two years is going to be harder for Ghana because, for an IMF programme to work, the necessary fiscal adjustments that this country will have to go through, I am not sure the government will even have the confidence to announce it.

“That is the reason perhaps, they are also setting up a committee to interface between the banking sector for the financial sector and then the government and the rest of the. I can tell you, the austerity that is coming will be unbearable, it could be unbearable because the level of fiscal adjustments that we need to make to accommodate an IMF programme for micro economic stability to be restored for external buffers to be created for credibility to come, inflation targeting and the rest of them, I can assure you it is going to be very painful.”

Meanwhile, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured the people of Ghana that his administration will negotiate a good deal with the IMF.

He said a deal that will ensure they the economy is developed more than it it is today will negotiated for.

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“We will negotiate a good deal, a deal that will allow us to build a strong economy that we had before,” he said at the delegates conference of the New Patriotic Party (NPP)at the Accra Sports Stadium on Saturday July 6.

The Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta also assured that the negotiations have been smooth so far.

“In line with the President’s dialogue with the IMF Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, negotiations will be fast-tracked to ensure that key aspects of the programme are reflected in the 2023 Annual Budget Statement in November 2022,” he said at a recent press briefing in Accra.

In addition, the IMF and Government Team are working to update the medium-term macro-fiscal framework to inform IMF programme design.”

“I am extremely confident about where we will land on this journey. We have survived a 142 percent inflation, yellow-corn hysteria, mass exodus from our country, and more recently a successful exit from the 2015 Extended Credit Facility. So let us go for the spirit of courage for the LORD is with this Nation. Let us not fear, for He who is with us is greater than all.”

Source:3news.com