Kweku Azar mocks latter day IMF believers, laments resort to Fund almost every four years

Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, alias Kwaku Azar, has lamented Ghana’s seeming inability to stay off the International Monetary Fund (IMF) whiles mocking pro-government people who have in recent times made full U-turn on the Fund.

According to the US-based academic, it had become increasingly clear that subsequent government were not learning from the economic mistakes that landed Ghana at the Fund on average every four years to seek support.

"On average, we go to the IMF every 4 years. That means we are not learning from our mistakes. Da Yie!" a July 4 Facebook post on his verified page read.

"Those who ruled out IMF, under any circumstances, are now proudly extolling it. Da Yie!" another post read in reference to government appointees and spokespersons who previously slammed the call to go to the Fund but are now supporting it.

Government on July 1, 2022 took the decision to begin formal engagements with IMF contrary to its earlier position of not returning to the Fund. President Akfo-Addo ordered Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta to start engagement with the Fund over a programme ami an economic downturn.

The decision has since divided public opinion.

If the engagement is successful, it will be the seventeenth time the country has returned to the Bretton Woods Institution for economic support.

Some reasons the government has consistently cited for which it made a U-turn on its earlier position on the IMF is the twin crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

Ghana first went to the IMF in 1966 and has since returned to it many times for help, mostly to deal with the balance of payment challenges such as high inflation due to the fall of the Cedi, inadequate FX and so on.

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