“IMF Programme Will Only Bring Hardship To Ghanaians” – TUC

The Secretary General of the Trades Union Congress, Dr. Yaw Baah says Ghana’s decision to the seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund, IMF will rather impose extreme hardship on Ghanaians than solve the country’s economic challenges. According to him, the IMF’s programs and policies are far from realities and will only prepare the country for another bailout. He also reiterated his outright opposition to the program.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, July 18, 2022 in Accra, Dr Yaw Baah stated,”Greatest challenge ahead of us is IMF-sponsored programme. As you know, IMF-sponsored programme or policies are completely divorced from reality. We already communicated our objection to the decision to seek an IMF bailout for the eighteenth time. We are convinced that an IMF programme will not solve problems. It will only bring hardships to Ghanaians,” he said.

“We insist that our main challenge in the management of the economy has to do with corruption and the failure on part of successive governments to transform the structure of the Ghanaian economy to allow Ghanaians to produce what we eat and eat what produce,” he stated.

“IMF programmes will not deal with these fundamental structural issues… We that the eighteenth IMF programme being negotiated now will not be different from the previous ones. What will surely be different this time is that TUC will lead the working people of Ghana to resist any attempts to impose hardships workers population, as a whole,” the TUC Secretary-General stated

Dr. Yaw Baah is also calling for a review of the country’s labour laws in order to protect workers. He bemoaned government’s inability to review the existing law after its promise to the labour front about three years ago.