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Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has affirmed that Ghana’s economy will emerge stronger than the country has experienced after going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a financial bailout.
Ghana and the IMF have commenced negotiations for a bailout program to assist the country’s economic challenges due to the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
Addressing Ghanaians on the country’s decision to seek economic assistance at the IMF Thursday, July 14, 2022, at the official launch of the Accra Business School’s IT Programmes, Dr Bawumia said the Fund has put underlying systems for Ghana to bounce back.
“With enhanced fiscal discipline and structural reforms to restore debt sustainability and growth, we should emerge stronger than we have with the previous 17 IMF programs.
“But it will take hard work and difficult decisions. With great pride and personal pleasure, it is good that we are all part of this launch of three new programmes by the Accra Business School in collaboration with the South East Technical University.
“It’s a day when the neglect of many decades comes to an eventual end. It’s a beginning to lay the foundations of strengthened institutions to take up the challenges of time with an able and apt workforce.
“It’s a day when a new beginning is being made by forging a common alliance between the government and academic leaderships to protect, preserve and promote above all, democracy via digitalisation,” he stressed.
On the external factors of Covid-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the vice president believes Ghana must have in place measures for a quick end because there is no end in sight for the global canker.
“The major lesson of the last two years is that we have to be more self-reliant as a country. It is important that we take decisions that will inure to the benefit of the country regardless of whether we are going to the IMF for a program or not.
“The immediate task is to restore fiscal and debt sustainability – through revenue and expenditure measures and structural reforms. Non-concessional borrowing should be curtailed to enhance debt sustainability,” Dr Bawumia mentioned.
Dr Bawumia also expressed that successive governments have been to the IMF for a program 17 times since independence and after each IMF program, the underlying system and structure of the economy remained the same.
“It is important to note that the focus of economic management by successive governments since independence in Ghana has been on crisis management as a result of factors such as the collapse in commodity prices, increase in oil prices, debt unsustainability, political instability, macroeconomic instability.
“Governments, have by and large, not focused on building systems and institutions that underpin economic activities in a modern economy.”
He, therefore, assured that the government is committed to building a system that will reduce bribery and corruption to make the delivery of public services efficient, enhance domestic revenue mobilization and that which will make life generally easier for Ghanaians.
