President Akufo-Addo has assured Ghanaians that his government will negotiate a good deal with the International Monetary Fund.
He said the NPP has a track record of negotiating deals that serve the best interest of the country with the IMF.
“Our party, we have a tradition of taking Ghana out of difficulties. We took Ghana out of HIPC in President Kufuor’s time. We took Ghana out of the derailed IMF programme of 2015,” he cited.
The President gave the assurance at the NPP’s National Delegates Conference which is currently underway at the Accra Sports Stadium.
The Conference is being held under the theme, “Holding together, Working together.”Over 6,000 delegates are expected to vote for 47 candidates who are contesting various positions in the National Executive.On July 5, government made a formal declaration of its intention to engage the IMF for economic support. A team from the Bretton Woods Institutions has since concluded an assessment of the eligibility of the country for the required support. At the end of a week-long discussion with members of the Economic Management Team, the IMF officials expressed the commitment of the Fund to assist Ghana accordingly.
While some analysts have commended the government for the bold initiative, others have derided it for running the economy down through imprudent expenditure. They contended that the resort to the IMF could have been avoided if government had cut down on some needless expenditure.However, President Akufo-Addo said, “I want to assure the people of Ghana that we are going to negotiate a good deal with the IMF. A deal that would allow us to revive our economy and to continue the task of building an even stronger economy than we had before.”
He further assured that, “we will be in a position, not only to negotiate, but implement a good arrangement. We have done it before and we will do it again.”
President Akufo-Addo promised that, “in so doing, the strong economy that we are going to build, is the economy that is going to provide the platform for our victory in 2024.”He therefore reminded the delegates to elect the men and women who will be able to lead the party into ‘breaking the eight.’“Let us make sure that we elect the men and women who can provide the leadership to enable the party to surmount our mantra to break the eight. And breaking the eight we shall in 2024,” he charged.
