<\/p>\n
John Mahama<\/strong><\/p>\n The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has replied former President John Dramani Mahama on his recent attacks on the Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva over Fund\u2019s assessment of Ghana\u2019s economic slump.<\/p>\n This follows statement made by the IMF boss that Ghanaians economy challenges were as a result of external shocks and not bad policies by the government.<\/p>\n Ms Georgieva, made the comments on the Ghanaian economy in a closed-door meeting with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on September 5, 2022, on the sidelines of the Africa Adaptation Summit, a conference on climate change, in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.<\/p>\n Describing Ghana as a \u201csuperb country\u201d, Ms Georgieva said the country\u2019s current economic challenges were not locally generated but were as a result of external shocks.<\/p>\n She said contrary to some narratives that Ghana found itself in the current situation due to the bad policies of the Akufo-Addo administration, the factors were exogenous.<\/p>\n \u201cLike everybody on this planet, you have been hurt by exogenous shocks. First the pandemic, then Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine. We need to realise that it is not because of bad policies in the country but because of this combination of shocks and, therefore, we have to support Ghana,\u201d the IMF boss said.<\/p>\n But not pleased with the diagnosis result mentioned by the IMF, former President Mahama had questioned the assessment of the current state of the Ghanaian economy by the Managing Director of IMF.<\/p>\n According to Mr Mahama, while it was a relief to hear Ms Georgieva \u201creaffirms the commitment of the IMF to support the people of Ghana in these perilous times\u201d, it was \u201cincontrovertible\u201d that the \u201cbad policies\u201d of the government had contributed to the economic slump.<\/p>\n He said policies such as \u201cthe botched, insensitive and dubious cost in closing down locally owned banks, unbridled levels of corruption and lack of accountability including the mismanagement of COVID-19 funds, unconventional borrowing practices riddled with opaqueness and conflicts of interest, resulting in an unsustainable debt envelope, costly, experimental and untested programmes\u201d, could not be ignored in understanding the current dire state of the Ghanaian Economy.<\/p>\n He said if these points were disregarded by the IMF and other international diplomats, they were likely to make a \u201cwrong diagnosis and prescribe inappropriate remedies\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the norm in international diplomacy of being guarded in what one says is appreciated, comments by high ranking officials must be grounded on facts that take into consideration local realities and opinions,\u201d Mr Mahama posted on Facebook.<\/p>\n \u201cThe incontrovertible fact is that Ghana is in a mess due to the BAD POLICIES of this government, which have contributed massively to the dire state of affairs.<\/p>\n \u201cInternational diplomats must consider these facts and not just ignore them; lest they make wrong diagnosis and prescribe inappropriate remedies\u201d.<\/p>\n He further advised international diplomats to reflect local realities when speaking about the Ghanaian economy.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Ghanaian economy must be managed first for the Ghanaian who lives and experiences it daily, not just for an international audience\u201d.<\/p>\n However, the Fund\u2019s Director of Communications, Gerry Rice, responding to the comment made by the 2020 presidential candidate of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Mahama at a virtual press conference held on Monday backed the claim made by the IMF boss, saying that the current Ghanaian economy has been pressed very hard by developments in Ukraine as well as Covid-19 shocks.<\/p>\n He categorically stated again that the country\u2019s current situation has been compounded by development which can be described as external shocks. Responding to the question, Mr Rice stated that, \u201cI would say, as just to repeat, the war in Ukraine has triggered a global economic shock that\u2019s hitting Ghana.<\/p>\n \u201cFor many of these countries, their room for fiscal manoeuvre, if I could put it that way, is already extremely limited because they\u2019ve used a lot of fiscal power already, firepower already in the pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, the shock coming from the war in Ukraine compounds other pressing policy challenges. And we\u2019re very cognisant of that. And that\u2019s why we are, as I described at the beginning, stepping up to help countries where we can, and that includes Ghana.\u201d<\/p>\n He further disclosed that an IMF mission is expected in Ghana in the coming weeks to continue talks with government over discussions for a Fund programme, noting that \u201cWe had an IMF staff team in Accra in July to begin initial discussions with the Ghanaian authorities. And we characterized that mission as constructive, kickstarted the process, and laid the groundwork for engagement, which now continues.\u201d<\/p>\n Ghana is before the IMF for US$3 billion to help the country navigate through the hostile economic crisis in which it finds itself as a result of the adverse effects of the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n Already, a delegation from the IMF, led by the Mission Chief for Ghana, Carlo Sdralevich, has visited Ghana and held initial discussions with the Ministry of Finance on a possible IMF-support programme.<\/p>\n By Vincent Kubi<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John Mahama The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has replied former President John Dramani Mahama on his recent attacks on the Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva over Fund\u2019s assessment of Ghana\u2019s economic slump. This follows statement made by the IMF boss that Ghanaians economy challenges were as a result of external shocks and not bad policies by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1151674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1207831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1207831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1207831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1207831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1207831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
This follows a questioned posed by a journalist demanding to know that \u201cThere\u2019s criticism by former President Mahama of the IMF seeming to praise, to say that the economic problems there, are entirely results of Covid-19 and the Ukraine war, and seeming to praise the government. I guess maybe that\u2019s just diplomacy, but can you address that criticism and then, finally smaller country?<\/p>\n