Financial Analyst, Sydney Casely-Hayford has expressed doubt over President John Mahama’s assurance that the nation will not seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after the three-year program runs out.
He has since advised the President to refrain from making promises about projects likely to exceed his tenure as President of Ghana saying, “…I don’t think the President should be making a statement that is going to exceed him and the future of this country.”
He said it will be disappointing to keep the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in government to continue the mismanagement of the economy which has forced the nation to seek a bailout from the IMF.
“This is beyond 2016 and we have not solved this problem. I doubt very much if the NDC government will be in power and I will be disappointed if we keep them,” he remarked.
Ghana is currently negotiating with the IMF for a three-year bailout programme to revive the nation’s challenged economy and the President has given the assurance this may be the last time the country will be seeking a bailout.
He was optimistic that the bailout programme will lead to a complete transformation of the economy.
But Casely-Hayford has cast doubts over the President’s assurance saying, the programme cannot resolve all the problems the economy is experiencing.
“I doubt very much that the depth to which we have sunk is going to be solved by a billion dollars of borrowed funds.”
He said Ghana has over the years been borrowing funds to solve avoidable socio-economic problems, therefore, for nation to avert another bailout programme, “it is going to be up to government if it has the political will to be able to solve this problem.”
In a related development, a senior lecturer at the Economics Department of the University of Ghana, Dr. Ebo Turkson has stated that Ghana’s economic history contradicts the Presidents assurance.
For him, the President should prove his critics wrong by cutting down expenditure to reduce deficits.
He recalled that “the last time we went for bailout; the expectation was that this will be the last time. But now look at the debts that we have and we having to go back to the IMF and World Bank so I am not too sure that this is going to be the last time.”
Dr. Turkson added that “whether it will be the last time or not will depend on what the government will do in the next few years.”
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(Selorm) | 
(Nana Kwesi)