Ghana needs ‘domestic IMF substitute’ – Kwasi Prempeh

Executive Director of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh has charged government to come out with what he calls a “domestic IMF substitute”.

This he notes will help put an end to the country’s continued dependence on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for directions on fiscal consolidation and revenue generation.

Professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh made the call at a roundtable discussion on “Interrogating Ghana’s 2023 budget and Economic Policy as a pathway to Economic recovery”, organized by the Citizen’s Coalition in Accra.

“Part of what I think has gotten us to this problem, is that when we started off the Eurobond thing, it was good…but I think that given the nature of our politics and our governance, it should have been very clear to us that we need a domestic IMF substitute. That is, if IMF is not there, you need yourself to put in certain guard rails and certain institutional frameworks, so that you will be more fiscally responsible and not have to go back to the IMF,” he said.

He noted that though the country has the Fiscal Council, it is not strong enough to ensure discipline.

“We have an IMF substitute on paper called fiscal council and even the one that was on paper was really not that strong. If you want to go to the IMF and you are still not fiscally disciplined, it won’t work,” he said.

This comes a few days after IMF and the Government of Ghana reached a staff-level agreement on economic policies and reforms to be supported by a new three-year arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) of about $3 billion US Dollars.

Ghana in July turned to the IMF for a $3 billion three-year period bailout as the economy faces its worst crisis in the last twenty years