You allow people to consume wrong info before debunking- TUC tells govt
Deputy Secretary General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) Joshua Ansah has asked the President and government officials to quickly respond to claims on socials media about governments polices and programmes.
He said if the speculations are untrue, the government should move swiftly to refute in order to prevent the public from consume false news.
Mr Ansah told TV3’s Daniel Opoku in an interview on Monday October 31 that “From the very get go the President is expected to talk. When speculations are in town and he thinks that it is not true, the Ministers or the President must come out to say that no, this is not true.
“The information about the haircut , it was not yesterday that they were debunking that is not true but has entered into everybody, everybody believed that it was something that was goin to happen. When the president said it yesterday I think it has calmed down but we still want to see more actions.”
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured that no investor will lose his or her money including pensions funds, government treasury bills or instruments if Ghana finally seals a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Mr Akufo-Addo noted that some members of the public have concerns that they will lose their investments if the deal with the Fund is closed,
But delivering an address to the nation on Sunday October 30, Mr Akufo-Addo allayed the fears saying, just as customers’ deposits were saved during the banking sector clean up exercise, no one will lose money in this also.
He said “There will be no ‘haircuts’, so I urge all of you to ignore the false rumours, just as, in the banking sector clean-up, Government ensured that the 4.6 million depositors affected by the exercise did not lose their deposits.
“I also want to assure all Ghanaians that no individual or institutional investor, including pension funds, in Government treasury bills or instruments will lose their money, as a result of our ongoing IMF negotiations.”
The Ministry of Finance recently announced that following several meetings held in the last few weeks in the US with the IMF, a “clear path towards the final details of a programme has been agreed upon by both parties”.
In a press release on Friday, October 21, the Ministry added that a Staff-Level Agreement is targeted by the end of the year.
“A pathway towards fiscal sustainability has also been extensively discussed, and the Government of Ghana and the IMF remain fully committed to the goal of reaching a Staff-Level Agreement on a Programme, within the shortest possible time.”
On Thursday, October 20, the IMF Mission Team Lead, Stéphane Roudet, described the discussions with Ghanaian officials in Washington DC as “fruitful”.
“We made good progress in identifying specific policies that would restore macroeconomic stability and lay the foundation for stronger and more inclusive growth,” he stated at the end of the discussions.
“The IMF team and the Ghanaian authorities remain fully committed to reaching agreement on a framework and policies for an IMF-supported program as soon as feasible.”
Mr Roudet will lead the Team to Accra in the next few weeks for negotiations to continue.
The Finance Ministry urged Ghanaians to continue to be patient “in what is undoubtedly a troubling and challenging time for our economy, and economies globally”.
“Government will continue to work with a fierce sense of urgency to stabilise the economy and place it back on a firm trajectory of growth.”
Last month, the Managing Director of the Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, promised that the $3-billion programme being sought by Ghana will be hopefully completed by end of 2022.
source: 3news.com
