Alan Kyerematen, an independent presidential hopeful, has revealed that he strongly advocated for Ghana to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during a challenging economic period.
He made this disclosure as a reaction to critics who say the former minister for trade and industries didn’t speak up when the economy was in a dire situation on Citi TV.
Alan Kyerematen indicated that the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta often provided excuses about potential solutions to the country's economic challenges.
According to him, he was the one who made a strong case for Ghana to seek assistance from the Bretton Wood Institutions, IMF.
“If a party takes a decision, does it require the minister of trade and industry to be speaking of corruption when the minister of finance is there? I was not appointed to the job of minister.
“I can put it on record that and the minister of finance cannot deny this, the vice president himself cannot deny this as well. I was a member of the economic management team and the people who have been part of this system will tell you that I was the one who at the time when it became clear that the numbers were so bad, made a strong case that we are not going to listen to the wailing of the minister of finance again,” he stated.
He continued “Always giving excuses about what he can do to turn it around and all that, I made a strong argument that the minister for finance has no basis for going around saying that we will not go to IMF because he is unable to provide any alternative. I told them that where we were at the time, we had no choice but to go to IMF if they were true."
He further pointed out that when the President eventually decided to seek assistance from the IMF, he was the first high-ranking official to publicly defend the decision
“So, when the president finally made the decision, I was the first person in a leadership position who went publicly to defend the position of the IMF. Did you hear the vice president or the finance minister come to defend the IMF?”
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Alan Kyerematen