A member of the Minority in Parliament is alleging that officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are not comfortable with the country’s Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta leading the negotiations for a possible financial bailout.
According to a member of the finance committee of parliament, Ernest Norgbey, government’s quest on accessing the fund will span over a year if Ken Ofori-Atta continues to lead the negotiations.
The Ashiaman MP argued that in spite of “financial misreporting” by the finance minister, his utterances in the past that Ghana will not seek an IMF support from the Bretton Wood Institution made the IMF officials uncomfortable in dealing with him (Ken Ofori-Atta).
He also observed that these are among other reasons some members of the majority caucus are demanding the resignation of the Finance Minister.
“IMF is saying that if it will be that man (Ken Ofori-Atta) who will negotiate on behalf of the country then it will take us more than year to access the fund… It is a statement of fact and why would you think that the majority would be so much interested that the man (Ken Ofori-Atta) gets out of office. There are real facts and IMF is finding it difficult to negotiate with the man because they have seen his traces from 2017 to date, they have gone through the books and they know exactly where monies have gone to and so if it is this man, who was on Radio and Television saying we will not go to IMF because we can do it our own and you want the same person to negotiate with you, morally and understandably, they will not be comfortable in doing so,” he stated.
In an interview with Kumasi based Oyerepa TV, the Ashiaman MP alleged that Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta refused to place a call to the IMF when he was instructed by the President to do so.
“And let me tell you one secret, when the President asked the Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta to place a call to the IMF he refused. It had to take the President to impress upon the Information Ministry to release the statement,” he told the morning show host of Oyerepa Breakfast Time Kwesi Parker-Wilson.
The NDC MP further noted that “The man (Finance Minister) is so bossy, we did not elect the fiancé minister, he was appointed by the government so he cannot impose himself on us that is why we are calling for his head. The President should have done the needful by reshuffling him or sack him”.
Source: Modern Ghana