Akufo-Addo opts for an IMF Program; An Open Letter to the Unsuspecting Ghanaian

 

 

 

Dear Unsuspecting Ghanaian,

The Deputy Employment and Labour Relations Minister, Mr. Bright Wereko Brobbey, said on Tuesday at a media briefing that, it was unreasonable for Teacher Unions to demand COLA at a time when things were so tough forcing government to seek help from the IMF. According to him, though teachers never worked during the 9 months of covid-19 scare, the government continued to pay them and that should be enough COLA for anyone. The Deputy Minister’s stance is a harbinger to what to expect from the Akufo-Addo government with the advent of the IMF program.

Mr. Austin Gamey, a labour consultant, has said that government can’t pay COLA when the nation is seeking help from the IMF. Speaking on Class 93.1 FM’s evening news analysis programme dubbed 505 hosted by Korku Lumor on Monday, July 4, 2022, Mr. Gamey warned that IMF programmes do not come without conditionalities. He argued further that, “I agree the workers are suffering looking at the inflation figures but the 20 per cent COLA is not the way to go”. The move to IMF is already becoming the basis for questioning every reasonable responsibility of the government.

On Joy News TV’s NewsFile last Saturday, Gabby Otchere-Darkoh, a nephew of the President, who is widely rumoured to wield enormous influence in the Akufo-Addo government, introduced a completely new twist to the IMF brouhaha when he cunningly attempted to blame the decision of the Akufo-Addo administration to go to the IMF on the NDC Minority in Parliament and posited that the failure of the Minority to allow for the passage of the E-Levy Act on time has led to the failure of the unpopular tax to rake in the intended revenues, forcing government to seek support from the IMF. The discourse gets murkier but in the midst of the purposeful muddying of the waters, we must see the clear intent of the government.

Since the announcement of the intention of government to see an IMF support, the media space has been awash with carefully spiced propaganda, steamed in a crafty way to redirect the discourse. I admit that there are a whole army of NPP loyalists who are all over the place defending the government just out of ignorance and never of any ill intent. Fact is, a lot of them don’t even know anything beyond the fanatic affiliation to their party colours. They simply do not know and never want to know the real facts on the ground. For them, it is just loyalty to their party and government. A huge number of such people have been unleashed into the system to throw dust into the eyes of well-meaning Ghanaians.

Having painstakingly followed events of the past few days, I am convinced that the ordinary Ghanaian must be extremely worried and angry at this cartel of thieves we call a government.

My clairvoyance can’t be wrong on this; the Akufo Addo administration’s rather dramatic U-turn to the IMF can’t be for the good reasons. Government is NOT seeking the IMF’s help in order to achieve fiscal consolidation. The truth is that, the Akufo-Addo government is getting choked by the increasing narrowing of the nation’s fiscal space arising out of the ineptitude and incompetence of the EMT, unbridled corruption and wastages, and the unholy over-politicization of State Institutions and Agencies.

The Akufo-Addo government‘s flagship programs, apart from being revenue sinks, have all become dysfunctional and under-performing.

1. Free SHS is on life-support with government openly expressing the desire to review it.

2. Government is unable to honour its financial obligations to fertilizer and other input suppliers so subsidy programs under the planting for food and jobs are failing and farmers are desperate.

3. One Village One Dam has become a shadow of itself.

4. The least said about One Constituency, One Million Dollars, the better.

5. NABCO is on steroids.

6. Both the Agenda 88 District Hospitals and 6 Regional Hospitals announced during the covid-19 era in 2020, and the Agenda 111 Hospitals announced in August, 2021 have all become figment of the President’s own imagination.

Additionally,

7. The Ghana Cedi continues to depreciate with the speed of light with fuel prices up the roof.

8. Almost all statutory financial obligations of government are in several months of arrears. Talk of the DACF, NHIA, etc.

9. Organized labour has indicated the intention to strike for improved wages.

10. The public sector is choked with clueless and unqualified party apparatchiks.

11. Rate of unemployment is ballooning with government unable to generate stable and meaningful jobs.

12. Government has not been able to pay salaries of its own MMDCEs for 9 months.

13. The National Cathedral Project is in a complete mess.

14. Public Debt is on the rise.

15. Their E-Levy has performed abysmally.

The cumulative effect of the afore-mentioned on the ordinary Ghanaian is the unpardonably high rising cost of living with transport fares skyrocketing by the day. More and more of the ordinary people struggle to get even one-square meal a day.

With such a heavy mess starring at government in the face, what any honest and sincere government will do is to come clear and clean on the challenges confronting the nation, rally the citizens along and find ways of cushioning the citizenry through mechanisms such as payment of COLA, cutting down on the size of government and needless profligacy, ensuring judicious use of the limited resources and genuinely pluck all the holes through which the nation’s limited resources are syphoned by officialdom. Unfortunately, we can’t say the afore-mentioned with the Akufo Addo administration, considering the arrogant posturing and prideful nature of the supposed ‘men’ at the helm of affairs. As has become the norm of Mr. Akufo-Addo and his henchmen, the government has decided to pull another fast one on Ghanaians by opting for an IMF support, something the Finance Minister and his Deputies told the whole world just few days ago that was never an option on their table.

Having carefully followed the discussions on Government’s move for the IMF program, I’m certain in my mind that the intention isn’t to help salvage the situation we find ourselves in, but just a shameless decoy to use the IMF as an excuse for all their failures. We are aware of their penchant for blaming their failures on everything and everyone else except themselves. Not long ago, Free SHS which they claimed had the magic wand to solve all the nation’s problems suddenly became the cause for all our woes. We were in this country when they told us that E-Levy had the solution to all our fiscal challenges. It is pretty obvious that the Akufo-Addo government has opted for the IMF as an easy escape route from blame for their unpardonable failures. Very soon, government will blame the IMF for…

1. Cancelling the current form and nature of the Free SHS and replacing it with something more sustainable.

2. Not being able to create decent and sustainable employment opportunities for the youth. They will cite their fake employment figures to justify that they were doing well with employment before the advent of the IMF program.

3. Ending fertilizer and input subsidies. They will again quote their fake statistics on the PFJ to throw dust into the eyes of the citizenry that they were doing very well before the IMF program.

4. Freezing wage increments.

5. Cancelling NABCO.

6. Cancelling the crazy National Cathedral Project.

7. Reinstituting Road Tolls. The IMF will certainly take relook at all possible revenue mobilization avenues and road tolls are more likely to be reinstituted.

Etc. But the big question we have to ask ourselves is whether the IMF imposes conditionalities. The answer is a big NO. The IMF only works with programs and conditions the beneficiary Sate presents to it. This means that, whatever outcome the nation Ghana gets from the move to the IMF would have been based on programs and conditions presented to the IMF by the Akufo-Addo government. The unsuspecting Ghanaian citizens must take critical note of this fact and guard against any scams and information spins from this government.

Right from day one, this government has always found a way to perpetuate fraud on Ghanaians. The Akufo-Addo government has been a huge scam on Ghanaians and the greatest of the fraud is the decision to seek an IMF support.

For a government that is so boastful of being endowed with the ‘men’, it beggars belief that the nation should find herself in such an unpardonable mess despite the heavy inheritance bequeathed to the Akufo-Addo administration by its predecessors. We as a people must not take the decision just on the face value of it. We must keep both eyes widely opened and our memories graphically sharp. The largest of all the fraud of the Akufo-Addo administration is yet to happen with the advent of the IMF program.

God bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong.

An opinion by…

KOFI MATTHEW
DEPUTY CR SECRETARY (NDC)
July 7, 2022