Franklin Cudjoe of IMANI Ghana has warned government to abort any plans of presenting concocted data to the Internal Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bail out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the agenda is to present incredulous, unbelievable data to the IMF, they better watch it because it\u2019s going to come back and bite us,\u201d he cautioned<\/p>\n
His warning comes on the back of allegations leveled against the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS)<\/strong><\/span><\/a> that data on inflation and exchange rates which are being churned out to the public are not credible.<\/p>\n A former BoG Deputy Governor, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia who made the allegations stated that the inaccurate figures seem to suggest that the exchange rate data has remained fixed over the last three months.<\/p>\n Although the two state institutions are yet to respond, Cudjoe is of the firm believe that Dr. Bawumia\u2019s claims are true.<\/p>\n He asserted that there seems to be \u201cdiscordant tunes from the Bank of Ghana and the Ghana Statistical Service and these things are not helping because the market participants [Ghanaians] out there are worried.\u201d<\/p>\n According to him, there is a likelihood that the government may be tampering with the figures as it prepares to submit data to the IMF for a possible bailout.<\/p>\n Ghana has requested for a bailout from the IMF<\/span><\/strong><\/a> to save the economy and the fast depreciation of the cedi.<\/p>\n Officials from the IMF<\/strong><\/span><\/a> are currently meeting government representative in Accra to for deliberations.<\/p>\n Speaking on Citi FM\u2019s<\/strong> The Big Issue<\/strong>, the IMANI president asked; \u201cyou are going to the IMF and you want to start massaging? I\u2019m not even being suggestive; I\u2019m just being plain\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is this? And a whole Communication Ministry will come out and say these are home grown figures,\u201d he retorted.<\/p>\n He added that the central bank \u201ccannot be performing vanishing acts on its website. Everybody looks at that website for credible data so if vanishing acts keep perpetrating itself whether they are dwarfish, they are goatish; I don\u2019t care. I just want my Bank of Ghana to give me data.\u201d<\/p>\n Cudjoe pointed out that the \u201cmonumental jump\u201d in the exchange rate and inflation figures are \u201cvery curious which tells me one thing; that our national accounting problems have deepened.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s not kid ourselves; the issue of national accounting is very, very important.\u201d<\/p>\n He remarked that it is worrying for the BoG to tamper with such data considering the fact that \u201cyou [BoG] had just supervised the most annoying, the most debilitating, the most retrogressive and regressive Forex rules ever known on the continent; plummeting the cedi into deeper waters probably more deeper than the entire sinking ship and you had the nerve to even question why people are suggesting that you are tampering with the figures.\u201d<\/p>\n The IMANI boss advised government to desist from such acts saying, \u201cplease, let things normalize, let it stay the way they are, let\u2019s not do this.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By: Efua Idan Osam\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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