IMF has never trusted NDC gov’t - MP

Hon. Emmanuel Kwabena Agyarko, Member of Parliament for Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency has expressed no surprise in the findings by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) regarding the statistical figures churned out by Bank of Ghana (BoG) on Ghana’s economy.

According to the opposition NPP MP, the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) government is known for its penchant to lie and massage official figures citing an incident during the Rawlings-Mills administration in 2000 where the IMF sanctioned the country for similar conduct.

As the Mahama-administration dispatches Ghana’s negotiating team to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC in the United States for further talks on the financial bailout, the IMF says figures presented by the government are not accurate and that they have been grossly massaged.

Reacting to a question at a Fiscal Monitor Report briefing in Washington on Wednesday, Sanjeev Gupta, Deputy Director, Fiscal Affairs Department, said Ghana’s debt profile is over 70% of GDP and not 35% as claimed by the Bank of Ghana.

“First of all, the debt-to-GDP ratio in Ghana is 71% not 60%; so it is much higher than you mentioned. I think you raised the question whether countries should be borrowing abroad or not. I think it is a very good idea to be able to borrow the money and use it effectively for development and building infrastructure. What we have noticed, not necessarily in the case of Ghana, but in many other countries, is that increases in that borrowing has not necessarily been accompanied by higher spending on infrastructure on the capital side, but has been accompanied by increase in spending on the current side. So, that has an impact on the ability to repay this debt,” Gupta said.

According to the IMF, Ghana’s public debt situation could reach over 70% of the country’s total economic output by 2015 per its assessment of Ghana’s actual public debt.

Pontificating on the IMF’s findings, Hon. Agyarko asserted onOman Fm that the ruling NDC government has disgraced itself and the country in the eyes of the international community and further added that the IMF and the World Bank have never trusted the NDC when it comes to statistical figures to support their request for bailout.

“IMF and World Bank don’t trust NDC government when it comes to paying back loans and using loans for its intended purposes. Through lies, Ghana was punished to pay a fine for massaging our economic report during Rawlings-Mills era and now in the era of Mahama, the same behavior of lies has repeated itself…..the disgrace is too much for the country to bear under NDC government; nothing can separate NDC from lies because it is their trademark”, he asserted.