General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Fiifi Kwetey Fiavi has refuted the claims by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Ghana’s current economic crisis was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.
The Managing Director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva last year corroborated the government’s narrative that the economic crisis in the country is a result of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Kristalina Georgieva, therefore, stressed that the predicament in the country cannot be attributed to the bad policies of the government.
But the General Secretary of the NDC vehemently disagrees with the stance of the IMF. According to the former Deputy Minister under the erstwhile Mahama administration, the IMF’s reasons for the cause of the economic meltdown are palpable lies.
Fiifi Kwetey argued that the IMF’s reasons cannot be true considering the current economic status of Ghana’s neighbors. To him, Ghana’s economy was already experiencing challenges even before the pandemic.
“If Ukraine and Covid were the problems then why were we having problems with this economy even before Covid 2019? Why did the World Bank country director say clearly that the economy of Ghana already was facing serious challenges even before Covid in 2019? Why was the cedi depreciating by close to 13% even before covid? Why were we having budget deficits in the region of 7.5, 7% before covid? Why was the debt stock already rising beyond 120 billion level pushing towards 225, 230 billion before covid?” he said.
He added that “what about Nigeria? What about Benin? What about Togo? What about Cote D’Ivoire? What about Burkina Faso? Innocent bystanders? let’s stop these lies. It doesn’t matter who said it, it’s a lie. It doesn’t matter who said it, it’s just a lie.”
He, therefore, stressed that the IMF is just confirming the NPP government’s narrative in order to save the face of the government.
“The IMF is simply trying to … you know what, you’re already in a disgrace, they know that you’re political foes, these are some of the lies you’ve been telling, feeding your country, they say ok if that is what makes you happy we’ll go along with some of them for you as long as you do what we want you to do. But let’s face the truth.
“The truth is this, if we were innocent bystanders then why are the countries surrounding us not having the same condition? Why have they not become a junk economy as we speak? Why is their inflation not above 50% as we speak? Why don’t we have a situation where their debt to GDP has gone over 100% as we speak? Why don’t they have the debt deficit in double digits as we have? Why are their pensioners not picketing unable to know the fortune of their pension funds? So it obviously is not the case,” he said.
