The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has stressed that interventions from Bretton woods institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have not in anyway transformed the recipient nations.
He asserted that it was unfortunate for Ghana, blessed with natural resources, to go cup in hand to the IMF for the 17th time seeking financial assistance to stabilize the economy.
Mr Bagbin was speaking at a public forum in Ho in the Volta Region to commemorate Ghana’s three decades of parliamentary democracy.
He, therefore, advocated for the formulation of a national development plan, through an inclusive approach where citizens would be allowed to make input so they can own the plan.
He also called for supporting legislature to compel successive governments to stick to it, and not implement their own programmes, ignoring the national development plan.
“I think it is time for us to redefine the roots, get a national development plan envisioned, where we will all buy into it. Get everybody once again on board, as the 1992 Constitution did, and then we will be moving in one direction.
Not for NDC to win, change the direction, for NPP to win and change the direction and leave a lot of uncompleted projects, wasting a lot of natural resources and going to beg the IMF to salvage us when we know that the IMF has never supported any society to develop. No society in the world has developed through the assistance of the IMF”, he said.
The IMF board in May this year approved Ghana’s request for a $3 billion bailout resulting in the release of the first 600 million dollars to the Bank of Ghana.
The subsequent releases hinged on Ghana meeting certain conditionalities set by the Fund which includes improvement in domestic revenue mobilization.
JoyNews checks from the Fund’s programme document reveal that Ghana has not been able to meet all the necessary financing assurances from its creditors to unlock the disbursement of the second tranche worth $600 million which was scheduled to hit Ghana’s account by November 1, 2023.
Government is still in talks with its external creditors for debt relief worth $10.5 billion. The country has already submitted proposals to its commercial creditors seeking a haircut of up to 40% and additional debt rework with its bilateral creditors including China and the Paris Club.