Public Agenda NewsPaper Ghana's only Advocacy & Development Newspaper
President Akufo-Addo has said that the country is hopeful to get an International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal latest in February.
According to him, the deal will enable the economy to bounce back.
He added that the deal will also help us repair the country’s public finances as well as “rebuild the confidence of outsiders in our economy and our own self-confidence in the manner in which economy can proceed.”
“We are going through that process with them (IMF) right now, as we speak and hopefully by the end of this month or latest by the middle of February, a full-blown IMF agreement will be put in place,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo made this remark while interacting with some students from Harvard University in the United States at the Jubilee House.
According to the President, a staff-level agreement with the IMF towards a full-scale agreement has already been achieved.
He was optimistic that “we will succeed in implementing the various considerations of the staff level agreement that will enable us to have a full IMF agreement.”
Meanwhile, reports indicate that the government’s quest for a bailout from the IMF is in limbo as debt restructuring, a key condition for the deal is yet to be satisfied.
After reaching a staff-level deal in December, the government gave itself a January 2023 deadline to reach a board agreement but that is unlikely to happen, and this is because the debt exchange programme is far from over.
There has been serious pushback from bondholders, who insist they will not sign on to the programme, the deadline for which is Monday, January 16.
Convener of the individual bondholder’s forum, Senyo Hosi has described as suppressive, the government’s domestic debt exchange programme.
He urged individual bondholders to reject the offer.
“Anybody who’s been contacted by your bank, write, back to your bank saying you will not accept it. Anybody who has his money in any of the funds, whether it is the data bank, M fund, or a balanced fund, etc does not accept it. It does not augur well for your good or that sort of economy, you are under no compulsion to accept it,” he said.
Also, a 65-year-old pensioner, Larry Jiagge has said he will contemplate ending his life if the government insists on including individual bonds in the Domestic Debt Exchange programme.
The old man said he has invested all his severance package into government bonds and will struggle to survive if his coupons are withheld.
According to him, his investment is his only source of income to get medication and feed himself.
Speaking in an interview on Joy FM’s, Super Morning Show, on Wednesday, he said “why can’t they (government) be very specific and tell us that if we don’t participate we will lose our money, then some of us will commit suicide rather than go through the pain.”
“The information out there is very minimal. You will talk to your bankers and they will tell you that is all the information we have, this is what we’ve been told. We are also waiting for additional information,” he said.
