Gov’t must tell Ghanaians what specially it will use $600 million cash from IMF for – Kwame Jantuah

Chairman of the Political Affairs Committee of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), Lawyer Kwame Jantuah has implored government to be clear in its communication on the deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

At a Joint Press conference with the IMF on Thursday, May 18, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta disclosed that the first tranche ($600 million) of the $3 billion Extended Credit Facility (ECF) will be invested into government programmes.

Speaking to Starr FM today, Kwame Jantuah has urged the Finance Minister to break that down and explain to Ghanaians where exactly the money will be going.

“I heard the Finance Minister when he said the IMF $600 first tranche that is coming we are going to use it for government programmes, what programmes? Like before, oh, we are using it for X, but we are doing Y. You don’t delve deep into the nitty gritty for people to understand. You have to delve into it,” Mr. Jantuah said.

The Private Legal practitioner continued, “We are getting $604million between now and the next tranche that will come in, number one, number two, number three…this is how we will expend it, these are some of the returns we are looking for. Has that been done, has that been told us?

“Should that transparency not start, because you say this IMF thing that is coming in is to build confidence in the economy, that confidence in the economy where should it start from? shouldn’t it start locally? why is it that we are always thinking of international and we are thinking of going back to the bond market and get loans, why?”

Per the agreement with the IMF, government must make good use of the first tranche of $600 to trigger the release of the second tranche after six months.