Ghana has not entered into IMF programme - Prez Mahama
President John Dramani Mahama has denied suggestions that government has entered into a programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and was, therefore, seeking political goodwill through the organisation of the National Economic Forum.
Rather, he said government was concentrating on the development of a home-grown economic strategy that would be used to migrate the country from the macroeconomic challenges that it is currently saddled with.
He, therefore, described as regrettable the decision by the opposition New Patriotic Party(NPP) to use that "misunderstanding" as basis to abstain from the ongoing National Economic Forum at Akosombo in the Volta Region.
"I wish to take this opportunity to state with great emphasis that as President, I have not taken any decision to enter our country into an IMF programme. What we are concentrating on is the preparation of a home-grown strategy of fiscal consolidation.
‘It is our expectations that both our domestic and international partners will join us in the implementation of this strategy.
“The brief that was presented to Parliament and then later to the IMF under our Article IV Consultation represent work in progress and would be finalised through broad consultation such as the forum we are holding here today.
“It is a tragedy of our very polluted and extremely partisan political environment that such a simple misunderstanding of the relevancies of this innocuous document would become the basis for a major political player to stay away from this all important exercise," President Mahama said.
The NPP on Monday announced its decision to boycott the event, citing late invitation and the fact that the government had already developed a medium-term policy.
In the view of the NPP, the government had already presented its development strategy and fiscal policy framework to the IMF, which is one of the country's major financier, and was, therefore, seeking political publicity with the organisation of the forum.
This, according to the president, was untrue.
He explained that the document in question was an aggregation of the budget and other policies already being pursued, but added that such initiatives would be debated and crystallised into a concrete policy document using views to be espoused at the forum.
He also called on participants to freely share their views on the issues on the table, given that constant discussion of the economic situation facing the country was the best way to finding solutions to them.
Earlier, the Vice President, Mr Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, had explained that the decision to hold a forum on the economy emanated from the president's earlier interactions with some business executives in the country.
Such discussions, he said brought to the fore the need to provide a national platform on which ideas on the economy could be shared and later put into a single document for implementation.
Mr Amissah-Arthur, who is the chairman of the forum, also appealed to all invitees to bear with the organising team, given that it was constraied by time.
He said the committee was conscious of the World Cup tournament, which starts in mid-June and its impact on events such as the National Economic Forum.
"Therefore, if the planning is not optimal, please forgive us," he said.