Ken Ofori-Atta, Finance Minister, is still holding on to the governments position that seeking a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), despite Ghana’s current economic challenges is not an option.
According to him, the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government is confident in its homegrown solutions in getting the economy to recover.
Speaking at the Minister’s Press Briefing in Accra, Ofori-Atta stated that the government will keep introducing more measures to raise revenue domestically to sustain the economy.
He noted, Ghana continues to enjoy the technical support and advice received from the IMF.
“We are members of the fund [IMF] and there are two major points of intervention that we have from the Fund. One is the advice that we get and these programme interventions which bring us some resources. If you see from the budget that we constructed for 2022 and the subsequent announces we’ve done, clearly the issue of Ghana having the capacity to think through the consolidation exercises and also disciplining itself with regard to the 20% to 30% [expenditure] cut that we have shown clearly is a direction that I guess even in a sense, the fund may be hesitant to push any further,” Ken Ofori-Atta explained.
The finance minister stressed that, the government is optimistic monies accrued from the implementation of the controversial Electronic Transfer Levy, E-Levy, will help fix the current budget deficit.
“I am confident that E-levy opens a new vista for a tax handle in a way which all Ghanaians will be paying something. I don’t know of any program which has technology involved that will not have teething problems, but certainly, the cataclysmic pronouncements by the people from the other side are not happening,” Ken Ofori-Atta added.
Posted by: Emmanuel Romeo Tetteh
