The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin says interventions from Bretton Woods institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have not in any way transformed the recipient nations.
Mr. Bagbin asserted that Ghana is blessed with natural resources so it’s unfortunate for Ghana to go to the IMF for the 17th time seeking financial assistance to stabilize the economy.
He advocated the formulation of a national development plan, through an inclusive approach where citizens would be allowed to make input so they can own the plan.
He was speaking at a public forum in Ho in the Volta Region to commemorate Ghana’s three decades of parliamentary democracy.
He also called for support for the legislature to compel successive governments to stick to it, and not implement their programmes, ignoring the national development plan.
“I think it is time for us to redefine the roots, get a national development plan envisioned, where we will all buy into it. Get everybody once again on board, as the 1992 Constitution did, and then we will be moving in one direction.
“Not for NDC to win, change the direction, for NPP to win and change the direction and leave a lot of uncompleted projects, wasting a lot of natural resources and going to beg the IMF to salvage us when we know that the IMF has never supported any society to develop. No society in the world has developed through the assistance of the IMF”, he said.
The IMF board in May this year approved Ghana’s request for a $3 billion bailout resulting in the release of the first tranche of 600 million dollars to the Bank of Ghana.
The subsequent releases hinged on Ghana meeting certain conditionalities set by the Fund which includes improvement in domestic revenue mobilization.