Haircut : Akufo-Addo has tied the hands of IMF negotiators – Kojo Poku

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo should have refrained from making a comment on whether or not there was going to be a haircut in view of the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), analyst, Mr Kojo Poku has said.

In the view of Mr Poku, the President’s comment that there will be no haircut ties the hands of the government’s negotiators because that was an option on the table.

He believed that the President could have allowed for the negotiations to end to see the nature of agreement that will be reached with the Fund before making that statement.

President  Akufo-Addo has assured that no investor will lose his or her money including pensions funds, government treasury bills or instruments if Ghana finally seals a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Mr Akufo-Addo noted that some members of the public have concerns that they will lose their investments if the deal with the Fund is closed,

But delivering an address to the nation on Sunday October 30, Mr Akufo-Addo allayed the fears saying, just as customers’ deposits were saved during the banking sector clean up exercise, no one will lose money in this also.

He said “There will be no ‘haircuts’, so I urge all of you to ignore the false rumours, just as, in the banking sector clean-up, Government ensured that the 4.6 million depositors affected by the exercise did not lose their deposits.

“I also want to assure all Ghanaians that no individual or institutional investor, including pension funds, in Government treasury bills or instruments will lose their money, as a result of our ongoing IMF negotiations.”

Commenting on this on TV3’s Big Issue with Roland Walker on Wednesday November 2, Mr Kojo Opoku said “This thing keeps coming, principal. If you leave the person’s principal and renegotiate his interest you are still giving him a haircut.

“If you elongate his tenure and do not give him the interest over that same tenure you are giving him a haircut. If you are looking at options of getting yourself to breathe and the President comes and makes this emphatic statement, you have really tied the hands of the negotiators of the IMF deal because it takes some of the options available to them off the table.

“I thought the President would have stayed away from that statement and let the negotiators negotiate and let us see what the final statement would have been form the IMF.”

Source: 3news.com|Ghana