Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has assured that there will be frank negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Asked about the future of the Free Senior High School (SHS) and the One District One Factory (1D1F) initiatives due to an IMF porgramme, he told TV3’s Paa Kwesi Asare in an interview that “We expect some very frank negotiations and it will determine where we are going on those progammes.”
IMF officials are expected to arrive in Ghana this week to begin negotiations with government.
Asked again what should be expected Mr Oppong Nkrumah said “First of all , we, in March put out a programme to mitigate the impact of this second crisis on the Ghanaian. In the last one week, we have been doing a lot of assessment with how well it has worked.
“What has happened after that, we are of the view that we need to have an enhanced economic programme that gives you more than just those specific issues that we had raised. That programme needs to be funded from various sources. You need domestic resources to fund that programme.
“That is why you instruments like the Electronic Transfer Levy , VAT, Property Rate, other things seeking to raise domestic resources to fund that programme. Then you need money from the international capital markets whose access is a bit difficult now because we have been downgraded but we have at least got about a billion dollars in Parliament we are hoping to pass and add to the resources we have to fund the programme to improve the condition of our people.
“Then you are also looking for a concessional facility like what we will be discussing with the Fund to add to that so it is a mix of resources that are coming in to fund our domestic economic programme and we are that we will be successful in that area.”
He added “negotiations are negotiations, we are looking for opportunity to sit with ladies and gentlemen of the Fund, and show them our enhanced domestic progarmme and explain to them why we believe that we need their resourcing in some particular areas to assist us on the balance of payment side which also translates into currency stability , some bit of macro stability that would improve the liquidity for the fiscal as well.”
On Friday July 1 President Akufo-Addo gave instruction to Mr Ofori-Atta to commence the engagements with the IMF following a telephone conversation between the President and the IMF Managing Director, Miss Kristalina Georgieva, conveying Ghana’s decision to engage with the Fund.
The Ministry of Information announced this in a statement.