IEA to government: Your proposal to IMF must protect vulnerable

Dr John Kwakye, the director of research at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), wants the government to come out with a proposal that will protect the vulnerable and flagship programmes ahead of its negotiation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Kwakye’s call comes ahead of the government’s meeting with the IMF team in Ghana to kick-start negotiation for a possible bailout.

“I expect the government to go with a strong proposal that will protect the vulnerable groups in Ghana and the government’s flagship programme,” Kwakye said on The Asaase Breakfast Show on Tuesday ( 5 July).

“It is true that we are going with our own programme but what will be taken to the IMF may need to be negotiated and some tweaks or concessions may be made.”

He added, “The IMF always has a shadow policy for every country, thus, when a government presents their policy to them then they marry them to each other.”

However, Abena Osei-Asare, a deputy finance minister has assured Ghanaians that development projects and key social intervention programmes will not be affected if the government agrees to an IMF programme.

 Backup plan

Osei-Asare said, “We have plans in place that we believe will help us stabilise the economy… other bilateral neighbours will also come in to help us in building back the economy.”

 She also said the government will protect social intervention programmes such as school feeding among others under the IMF programme.

“From 2017 to 2019, we still implemented the school feeding under an IMF programme and we even expanded it. In 2017 when we came it was around 1.3 million children [benefiting from school feeding], but in 2019 we had moved to almost two million children under an IMF programme. In September 2017 under an IMF programme, we did implement Free Senior High School programme.”

“So, like I am saying the government will do everything possible to protect social intervention programmes that we believe will protect livelihoods and also cause the people who are economically low to thrive,” Osei-Asare said.