Ghana/IMF partnership: New wine skin needed
Ghana is undoubtedly in financial dire straits and the way out will involve ground breaking, even if seemingly controversial, approaches than have never been the case.
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The government has opted fundamentally to seek an IMF bailout – never mind all the rhetoric about it being a partnership – which though viewed as demeaning by many Ghanaians, most, in this particular instance, agree is the best way out for the country if its economy is not to be ruptured by its severely sickened financial sector, with debt-to-GDP currently estimated at 55.4 per cent by the Bank of Ghana and projected to hit 71.1 per cent at the end of 2015 by the IMF.
President John Mahama has also expressed his government’s determination to make this the last IMF bailout that the country would ever seek and though viewed as highly optimistic by some analysts, the good news is majority of the political economy think-tanks in the country share similar sentiments with the President.
The hitch, however, is most Ghanaian stakeholders feel left out of the deliberations on this new programme.
“It must be a matter of grave concern to all Ghanaians that the current negotiations are going on without any prior conversation with the people of Ghana represented by civil society and other non-state actors. Not even our representatives in Parliament have been consulted prior to the negotiations to share with the government and the negotiators their views on the key issues to be negotiated,” said Mr Joseph Winful, recently retired Senior Partner of KPMG Africa and currently Executive Chairman of the Financial Accountability & Transparency-Africa and the Chairman of the CSO Platform on IMF.
The CSO Platform, purposely formed to advocate civil society inclusiveness in major public financial management issues and in particular the IMF negotiation, comprises 10 civil society organisations and institutions.
It is pushing for the views of citizens to be taken into account in any agreement with the fund so as to engender a citizens’ buy-in into the agreement and work towards a successful execution of whatever conditionalities the agreement imposes on Ghanaians.
“In our opinion, it is the only way to make this bailout the last bailout that we will seek as a country,” Joseph Winful says.
Ghanaians, who have in the recent past gone through several IMF programmes, have been most apprehensive about and suspicious nature of the fund’s programmes. A situation that the CSO Platform attributes to inadequate information dissemination resulting from a general lack of participation by the citizenry.
Joseph Winful observes that a similar situation could occasion the current IMF intervention since government has exclusively initiated negotiations without any involvement of other stakeholders, noting that; “there would be no chance for Parliament to debate and make any changes to the agreement once it is agreed between the Government of Ghana and the fund.
“Clearly the inclusion of two or four members of the finance committee from both sides of the divide on the negotiating team would have been useful,” he said.
While this groundswell of interest in the current IMF programme may be a positive development, in that, properly managed by government, it could foster a more enthusiastic and broader participation in its implementation, it could also constitute a formidable opposition to any agreement that they feel left out of.
This is a development that must not be lost on both government and the IMF, which are desperate to shore up their credibility predicament of recent years.
More especially as the CSO Platform has the capability of influencing public opinion greatly through the means they intend to use to mobilise mass participation in the Ghana/IMF partnership.
Winful disclosed that to reach as many citizens as possible, they intended to deploy relevant ICT tools and interventions, including Bulk SMS, where all the necessary information about the IMF bailout would be easy to comprehend messages that would seek to inform citizens about the conditions of the bail out and how that would shape the country’s financial future.
They will also engage citizens through the social media, particularly on Facebook and Twitter where vibrant discussions will be undertaken and relevant citizens’ comments will be collated to inform the final recommendations that they hope to send to the Ministry of Finance.
The forum will also be carried on line through Google+ hangout where as many citizens can participate in an online forum to raise their awareness about the pertinent issues surrounding the IMF bailout and their views collated.
Finally, there will be an online platform to serve as a one-stop-shop knowledge and resource centre where all information about the bailout will be made available. It will also serve as a citizen-based advocacy platform where citizens can send all information pertaining to the bailout via web-forms.
This will be incorporated with emailing alerts systems that will enable easy sharing of contents among citizens and CSOs for a collective effort in getting citizens voices heard on the bailout and for a greater impact of the recommendations made by these identified groups and also for citizens and CSOs to make informed contributions to moderated discussions via email.
Obviously, the CSO Platform will engender broader and deeper participation in the new IMF intervention in Ghana, which may make government somewhat uncomfortable, perhaps with a sense of its domain being intruded.
But it may turn out to be the intrusion that all stakeholders need to ensure that they develop a meaningful partnership; the sort of partnership where everybody wins.