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Assibey-Yeboah extols benefit of IMF program

The former Member of Parliament for New Juaben South, Mark Assibey-Yeboah, has extolled the benefit of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) program and stated that he will as Minister of Finance park the country’s economy at the Fund.

He explained that the country’s economy was better managed under a Fund programme and was more prudent for the country to be borrowing from the Fund than the open market.

“It is more prudent to borrow from the IMF because loans contracted from the Fund attracted zero interest and when the IMF are in town, we get issues done right and if you go back to the program we had under 2009 to 2012 was fantastic since the macro indices at the time, the best we have seen in a longtime,” Mr Assibey-Yeboah, the former Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament contended.

According to him, the moment the Fund left in 2012, everything went berserk and if he were the Finance Minister he would park the economy at IMF.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on July 1 directed Ken Ofori-Atta,the Minister of Finance, to begin formal engagements with the Fund and an IMF team has arrived in the country to begin initial engagement processes and the team was led by Carlo Sdralevich, who is the mission chief for the country.

Mr Assibey-Yeboah indicated that every Friday the government goes for auction at the Bank of Ghana to borrow money at 27 per cent interest rate however, the Fund could give the government $1 billion interest-free, give moratorium and 25 years to repay and asked the government not to take negotiations with the IMF for granted.

He cautioned the government to be careful about negotiating a program since the engagements did not automatically meant the country would be supported and assisted and stressed that the rhetoric and posturing must slow issues down but expects economic situation to change “if we finalise support and assistance from the IMF and the 17th time will not be the last, we will be going to the IMF again”.

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