<<Print>>

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged the ruling government to pay critical attention to issues likely to put the country in a situation that might require another bailout programme from the Bretton Woods' institution.

The Resident Representative of the IMF in Ghana, Dr Albert Touna Mama, says the high risk of debt distress, weak domestic revenue mobilisation, off-budget transactions and a high level of fiscal risk from the energy sector are issues that could erode the gains in stabilising the economy.

At a roundtable workshop held last week, he said "those were major foundations that the government needed to get right, since they constituted the very reasons for which Ghana kept on running back" to the IMF for a bailout.

A few months ago, specifically in May 2019, the IMF and the World Bank classified Ghana as a high-risk debt distress country saying the country's debt-to-GDP ratio, debt service ratio and debt-to-export ratio breached required limits; just a step shy of being plunging into an economic abyss.

Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., sharing his thoughts on this during a panel discussion on Peace FM's morning show 'Kokrokoo', Tuesday, said "seeking assistance from the IMF is not wrong in itself, but the kind of conditionalities one agrees to under the IMF is the problem".

Below is a video of what he told the ruling government