The Minority in Parliament says it expected the recent review carried out by the mission team of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to offer a modicum of improvement in Ghana’s economic situation.
However, the caucus estimates, the data show that the situation is worse currently than in 2022.
This was made known by the Ranking Member on the Finance Committee of Parliament, Isaac Adongo, at a press conference on Monday, October 9.
“In the first place, the data is quite clear that the situation is worse today than it was last year,” Mr Adongo, who is also the Bolgatanga Central Member of Parliament (MP), said.
“And yet we would want to believe that last year was the rose period that after the IMF in 2023 it will get better than last year but the data suggest otherwise.”
This is in reaction to the outcome of the second review led by IMF’s Chief of Mission, Stéphane Roudet, and as announced on Friday, October 6.
Mr Roudet had told journalists at a joint-press conference with the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, in Accra that there appears to be a turnaround of the Ghanaian economy much to the surprise of the Fund.
“We also have the adjustment and fiscal position the Minister mentioned the numbers for June much better than the target,” he said.
“The external position in general is stronger, the currency has become much less volatile than what Ghana has experienced at the end of last year when it was a very challenging situation.
“So, clearly there is a turnaround, there is an improvement and signs of macroeconomic stability are now emerging.”
‘Lobbyist activity’
But Mr Adongo challenges this and categorically states that there is no turnaround of the economy, describing the current situation as a “lobbyist activity”.
“It has become necessary because it does appear to me that this IMF programme is not a programme that is targeted at doing the hard work to help the people of Ghana get out the difficulty that we are in.
“But it is one that for me appears to be more of a lobbyist activity, treated with kids’ gloves and a child who is not willing to take the bitter pill in order to heal faster and all that has been going on is basically playing with the emotions and the livelihoods of Ghanaians and using PR to foster that.”
He said year-on-year inflation gives varying figures.
According to him, the IMF team rather compared mangoes with pineapples instead of mangoes to mangoes or pineapples to pineapples.
“What they have sought to do is to compare mangoes with pineapples,” he alludes.
“You can’t take end-year inflation of 2022 and compare it with any of the inflation other than December 2023. That is how you compare apples to apples,” he added, citing how in June 2022 inflation was 29.8 percent but 31.7 percent in June 2023 with the IMF programme implemented.
“The inflation we are seeing today has different seasonal and cyclical pressures compared to that of December. In December, we all know the demand pressures, we know Christmas comes, there is a lot of pressure on the Ceid because people are looking for foreign currency to stock for Christmas and all that. The inflation of now has not experienced that so you can’t compare that to the inflation that would be attained in December.”