Following the government’s failure to successfully negotiate a bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), calls for the resignation of Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta have increased.
Weeks have passed since Ken Ofori-participation Atta’s team’s with the Fund was first announced.
There have been worries voiced that the country’s economy may continue to suffer as a result of the delay in finalizing the agreement with the Fund.
While in Ghana to check on the status of a program in Accra, the world’s largest investment bank, Goldman Sachs, warned investors that “delayed conclusion poses the possibility of increased deficit monetisation by the BoG, cedi depreciation, and a loss in foreign exchange reserves.”
This, according to Goldman Sachs, implies that “the macroeconomic outlook may deteriorate further in the near termâ€.
Thus, the call for President Akufo-Addo to immediately remove from office Ken Ofori Atta or the minister resigns from the position to allow fresh minds to take over.
Dr Julius Kweku Kattah, an international economist and a fellow at Chartered Economists Ghana, who supported this call, said the reshuffling of ministers was long overdue.
According to him, the delays in effecting the change will not only negatively impact the economy locally, but internationally.
“We have wasted a lot of time. That gap is crucial in the development process. When your economic development is supposed to drive at a certain pace and we, later on, get to know that its implementation has delayed, then we are not going to achieve our target for the period we have designed the budget for,†he said.
Meanwhile, a government spokesperson on Governance and Security, Palgrave Boakye Danquah, had indicated in an interview with TV3 that the Akufo-Addo-led government will by the end of the year 2022 or the beginning of 2023 close its deal with the Fund.
“By the end of the year or early 2023, we should have positive feedback from the IMF,†he said.