The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Bimbilla and Minister of Defense, Dominic Aduna Bingab Nitiwul, has been dismissive of calls to downsize – trim down the government to save cost.
The Minister does not see how reducing the number of government’s appointees is going help save so much money to turn the economy around.
Cutting down the number of appointees, he adds, would not lead to any significant reduction of government’s spending.
It is never the solution to the problems with the economy – it is a road to nowhere.
The government has now gone to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a decision President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says is meant to “to repair our public finances, which have taken a severe hit”, whilst his government continues to work on the medium to long-term structural changes to build a more resilient and robust economy.
Ken Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister, is leading the government’s negotiations with the Fund. The government is expecting to get support of US$2 billion from the IMF.
Added to that, is going to be the country’s access to the international financial market, to raise money to support critical infrastructure development.
Ghana’s pre-COVID-19 pandemic economy was doing very well, was touted as one of the fastest growing economies in the world and received high ratings from the international rating agencies.
Organized labor has slammed the government’s decision to run to the IMF for a bailout, casting the decision as “a tragic mistake and a sad one for Ghana”.
Dr. Anthony Yaw Baah, Secretary General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) said going to the IMF was wrong and not the right thing to do.
The country’s history of engagements with the Bretton Wood Institution, he noted, provides enough evidence to show that IMF-sponsored programmes are never a panacea to the country’s economic circumstances.
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