The Minority in Parliament has cautioned that Ghana risks returning to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for a bailout due to bad economic management by the current government.
The Minority indicated that the country is confronted with fiscal challenges and high level public debt.
Addressing the media in Parliament, the Ranking Member on the Parliamentary Select Committee on Finance and the Spokesperson on Finance, Mr. Cassiel Ato Baah Forson, disclosed that the country is confronted with hardship and consumed with unprecedented public debt.
“It would not come as a surprise if Ghana seeks a bailout from the IMF less than two years after exiting a similar programme that the current administration proudly touted as an achievement”, he explained.
His comments follow the 2019 Mid-Year Review of the Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government and Supplementary Estimate for the 2019 Financial Year, presented to the Plenary by the Finance Minister, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta, on Monday, July 29, 2019.
The Ranking Member, who doubles as the Member of Parliament for Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam, added that the policy measures introduced in the Mid-Year Review indicate that the economy is in dire straits.
“The Mid-Year Budget clearly showed that the public finances are in dire straits and the resort to additional tax measures is an indication of the troubling times that we are in”, the Ranking Member stated.
Mr. Ato Forson informed the media that increasing external vulnerabilities and exposures culminated in the rapid depreciation of the cedi during the first quarter of the year, 2019.
He further reiterated that apart from the services sector, which showed an increase in growth from 5.8 percent in the last quarter of 2018 to 7.2 percent in the first quarter of 2019, all other sectors saw a decline in growth.
Source: GhanaJustice/S.Ayisi
