The Member of Parliament for Subin, Eugene Boakye Antwi, says the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is not taking Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta seriously.
According to him, some unsavory comments made by Mr Ofori-Atta concerning the IMF and international rating agencies have caused a dent in the Finance Minister’s credibility.
This, he said, makes him unfit to lead the country’s financial team to negotiate with the Bretton Woods Institution.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, he said, “Where we find ourselves today, it is about credibility. The IMF is not taking Ken Ofori-Atta seriously no matter what anybody says. We still have not been able to achieve anything. If we’re going to get any money into the system it’ll probably be in January thereabout. But we are sinking, we are sinking.”
His comment supports earlier calls for the Finance Minister to resign by the MP for Mpraeso, Davis Opoku Ansah.
Mr Ansah had suggested that Mr Ofori-Atta’s continuous stay in office was delaying the IMF bailout the country is seeking.
He added that the embattled Minister cannot lead the country into such valuable negotiations.
“He doesn’t have the credibility to lead a debt restructuring program, hence his delegation of responsibility to a five-member committee,” he wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
In the same vein, the Subin MP has called on the President to, with immediate effect, replace the Finance Minister with a new person.
According to him, a fresh face in the Finance Minister’s office will reinstall confidence in the country’s economic recovery programme and will hence quicken the IMF negotiations.
“And this so-called mantra of ‘we have the men, we have the men’, it’s like we’ve become a laughing stock. And we do have the men so President Akufo-Addo should deploy the men. We do have the men at the party. What kind of education has Ofori-Atta got? What kind of exposure has he got that others haven’t got? This is where we’re coming from.
“So sometimes by just putting a new face on the seat, we’ll sort of bring confidence back to the economy; stabilize the markets for us to be able to go to these negotiations with a firm request. And that’s what we are asking.
“And as I have said to several stations today, we’re running a democracy; we’re not running a family dynasty, that’s what people must get into their heads. This party is not just about a certain group of people or a person, this party is about all of us,” he said.