Ghana Deserves The IMF Loan
By a correspondent
In pursuit of its objective massive loans are granted to many developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America, as well as communist countries like Romania, Hungary and Poland.
To qualify for capital assistance from the two financial institutions, a member country has to meet certain conditions which involve re-adjustment of the applicant country's currency.
Certain economists and financial experts have in the past condemned the World Bank and IMF for proposing stringent conditions which when implemented imposed hardships on the poor citizens of the countries involved and sometimes led to the overthrow of their governments.
Such accusations have not deterred the World Bank and IMF and their financiers in the developed capitalist world from investing their money in the global economy..
Indeed, these financiers are encouraged by recent indications of an up-turn in the economies of some industrialised countries to invest more of their capital in the Third World. The logic of the situation is that this recovery can only be sustained if the goods manufactured in the industrialised world can be bought by the developing countries. If they are regularly and massively bought it means that the factories are in business, and there is employment and growth in the developed economies.
Therefore the loans that are being granted by the IMF and World Bank are geared to sustaining the import capacity of the developing countries and nothing more.
Ghana as a developing country, importer of commodities from the industrialised nations and finally a member of the International Monetary Fund applied for assistance from the Fund and was accordingly granted a loan of $377 million.
There was nothing special about this package which in fact does not measure up to the billions of dollars that are granted to countries like the Ivory Coast, Senegal or Togo, all of which are smaller nations and economies than Ghana.
The morality of granting the loan to the military regime should not be held against the IMF. The Rawlings regime like others in many developing countries overthrew legally constituted governments and were promptly accorded recognition by the International Community.
Since Rawlings overthrew the constitutional President government of Limann, representatives have been admitted to meetings of his Organisation of African Unity Non-Aligned Movement, ECOWAS and the United Nations without question. What right has the IMF or World Bank not to transact business with it?
The money given to Ghana by the IMF is a loan to be repaid by Ghanaians. Hence if the people of Ghana are of the view that the Rawlings regime is not only illegal but also incapable of salvaging the country's shattered economy, it is Ghanaians alone who must initiate action to change it.
As a non-Ghanaian but keen observer of events in Ghana I have been appalled by the second coming of Flt Lt. Rawlings at the expense of government that was elected freely by Ghanaians in 1979.
His current performance as compared with his three month impressive stewardship in 1979 no doubt has been a failure. All the problems he sought to solve have exacerbated and the people of Ghana must curse their existence in that part of the world.
He has let loose on the peace loving Ghanaians wolf-like members of Defence Committees whose activities pass for terrorrism.
Rawlings' attacks on the judiciary, media, Universities, civil service, workers Unions and industries are unfortunate. His subservience to the whims of Col Gaddafy of Libya is also regrettable, So are the condemnations heaped on the IMF and World Bank by representatives of the regime.
But Rawlings' action in restoring the exchange rate of the country's currency in real terms to close to what it was in 1972, the last year in which there was reasonable equilibrium in the balance of payments, shows him as a bold and pragmatic leader whose thoughts are dominated by national interests.
This was one of the factors that swayed the IMF and World Bank in granting the loan to Ghana.
