Run-Man-Run, IMF Is In Town

When I was a kid, there was this cowboys' movie titled 'Run-Man-Run, Santana Is In Town'. Santana was the main protagonist, who together with his men, wreaked havoc on the people in the communities around him. He was such a dreaded person in the movie. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), an arm of the World Bank, has attained certain notoriety in its relationship and prescriptions to members of the global financial body who happen to approach it for support of whatever form in the management of their internal financial affairs. In the minds of the ordinary people, particularly people in the third world countries, the IMF is a dreaded institution which should not be entertained.

Their conditions and prescriptions are seen as worsening the conditions of the majority of the people in the recipient nations. The questions that need to be asked and answered are:

Does the IMF simply jump into countries and offer those prescriptions and conditions? Are they invited by the recipient nations, and what necessitate the presence of the IMF in the sovereign nations? I have to be sympathetic to the IMF at this stage. A sick person walks into the consulting room of a medical officer to be diagnosed of an ailment and prescriptions for the cure offered. Whatever is the ailment of the patient is not the making of the medical officer; it is either the actions or inactions of the patient, directly or indirectly, that might have caused the problem.

Yet when the medical officer prescribes the necessary antidotes to the ailment and it is harsh or expensive, the family of the patient takes on the medical officer without asking the patient what brought about the ailment in the first place. I am using this analogy which may sound a bit weird in the minds of some people though. The fundamental argument here is, what do our governments do wrong to compel us to approach the IMF for support?

The IMF visits a nation that has not disciplined itself as far as its monetary and fiscal policies are concerned. When governments exhibit total mismanagement in their internal affairs to a point of grinding things to a halt, then they require external 'watchmen' to help them manage their own lives. This is exactly why the Mahama administration is on its knees begging the IMF to, as it were, come and instil discipline into the skulls of those in whose hands we have entrusted our resources to manage.

Some of the prescriptions by the IMF which all of us abhor are retrenchment of public workers and freeze on employment into the public sector. The objective is to reduce government wage bill and save money to pay off its indebtedness. Government has obviously started that by sacking 'Pupil Teachers' in the Ghana Education Service. Sometimes emoluments are cut as part of the policy prescription. So we should expect mass retrenchment of workers in the public sector should the government decide to accept the IMF conditions for financial support. Subsidies on services and goods are going to be withdrawn, fuel prices are going to be hiked further, electricity and water tariffs, even as they remain scarce, are going to go up, more taxes will be our lot while certain basic services in the social sector would be curtailed.

Ongoing capital projects are going to be halted as part of the prescription to reduce government expenditure while increasing revenue. Remember that government's current total indebtedness is 55% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Truth be told, African leaders have been populist in their governance style rather than being realistic in their approach to the management of national resources. Ghana's economic malaise is founded on the notion of making everything free for the citizenry, even when they do not contribute immensely to the kitty. It is important for us to calculate the cost of unbridled subsidies to almost all sectors of our national lives. Once we have been able to assess the amount of funds that have gone into subsidies, we can then determine how many good schools, clinics, roads and houses those funds could have provided for the collective good of all.

The chicks have come home to roost. We are all suffering from undeserved enjoyment in the past which we should have paid for. For me, the only two areas of subsidy should be agriculture and health. My third area is education—very well planned and selective towards the extremely poor and not to all. We live in a society where the rich can spend up to GH¢500 or more per term on children in Creche, but when the same children get to SHS, parents want government to subsidise their education. This is active madness.

Having made these preliminary observations, I think the next coming of the IMF could have been avoided if the leadership of today had the nation Ghana at heart. If the truth be told, the NDC came into office the third time with the knowledge that once this nation had struck oil, they can loot and still cover up with the oil revenues. Every financial malfeasance that has come out under the Mills- Mahama administration had been planned. So deep are the fingers of President Mahama in some of these financial malfeasances that he has lost the moral and constitutional authority to deal with the crooks in his government. How can he, when people like Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, who was his Campaign Manager in the last elections, had access to funds which came directly from the Bank of Ghana for the campaign? Unsurprisingly, even when he (Afriyie) is suspected of having mismanaged our resources in Brazil 2014, he is elevated to the presidency instead of being booted out.

Now IMF, you are welcome; but please, in your investigations into the state of our finances please look at the following:

The Supreme Court says Woyome, Waterville, and Isofoton should refund some monies to the nation. Compel government to collect all these monies, investigate major procurements and authenticate the principle of value for money. Take a critical examination of the Auditor-General's Report  on public finances and compel government to collect all public funds misappropriated by public servants and any such public officials and apply the laws as they pertain now.

It will be very interesting for the IMF to also look at the SADA, SUBAH, GYEEDA and rlg Group of Companies, which have burnt hundreds of millions of public funds without any benefit to the nation. It is important that the IMF takes the government on and help retrieve monies paid to people for no jobs done as the starting point of helping us to discipline ourselves. It will not be fair for the ordinary citizens to be punished by imposing severe hardships on us when those who benefitted from the corruption which has landed us in this situation walk freely.

Willy-nilly, whatever prescriptions that would be recommended by the IMF will have major negative social and economic consequences for all of us, minus the thieves governing this country. What safety-net will there be for us? I remember the IMF prescribed Economic Recovery Programmes (ERP) and the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) which came with the Programme of Action to Mitigate the Social Cost of Adjustment (PAMSCAD). This time around, I suggest a Programme of Action to Mitigate the Social Cost of Corruption (PAMSCOC). We need to survive to enjoy our mahogany bitters.

PRESIDENT MAHAMA MUST BE HONEST.
I watched and listened to President Mahama telling fellow Ghanaians in the Northern Region that he was going to complete all projects started by past governments and abandoned by their successors. That is very excellent assurance. But even as he was doing the narration, he mentioned projects initiated by Nkrumah, Acheampong, and Rawlings. He left out those of Busia, the NLC and lately Kufuor. The inference is that those governments initiated nothing, let alone being abandoned by successors. No wonder the Suhum portion of the Accra-Kumasi road has been abandoned. Mr President, a little honesty is good for your health at this time of your presidency.

A toast of three shots of mahogany bitters to the IMF team, a wholly made in Ghana stuff, you may call it Bitters Brewed in the African Pot in line with patronise Made-in-Ghana goods.

By Kwesi Biney