Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. has reiterated his long-standing conviction that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has nothing good to offer the country.
Although Ghana has been able to broker a $3 billion IMF-supported bailout program, the veteran journalist is of the firm opinion that the program will never solve the bread-and-butter issues that Ghanaians are always crying for improvement.
According to Kwesi Pratt, he finds it very strange that officials of government are jubilating over the bailout program with the reason that the economy of the country will be turned around with the advent of the Bretton Woods Institution’s supported deal.
The senior journalist argues strongly that IMF has never been an antidote to Ghana’s economic crisis since the country’s first association with the Bretton Woods Institutions. He further stated that no country in the world has been able to successfully surmount its economic challenges with an IMF-supported program.
Kwesi Pratt who was speaking on Accra-based Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana therefore challenged the entire country that whoever knows one country that was able to turn its economic fortunes around with the help of the IMF should come out and say it.
He stressed that there is none in the entire world adding that IMF-supported programs always deepen the economic crisis in the beneficial countries.
“I want to throw a challenge, somebody should tell me one country, not two, two is too much, one country in this world which has gone for an IMF deal and has come out of economic crisis; just one country. There is none. They always deepen the crisis,” Kwesi Pratt Jnr. argued.
He, therefore, added that Ghana’s case will not be different since the program will not deal with the core problems of Ghanaians such as high living conditions and high rate of unemployment. To him, Ghanaians should brace themselves for more hardships due to the program.
He said, “this IMF deal, what is it intended to do? Is it intended to reduce the price of Kenkey or stabilize the price of Kenkey? No! This IMF deal, is it intended to create more employment for people? No! This IMF deal, what is it intended to do in terms of the things that we complain about? That is not the focus of the IMF deal. The primary focus of the IMF deal is that we pay our loans to Western Financial Institutions. That is why they have imposed all these draconian measures on us to worsen the plight of the Ghanaian people.”
