Isaac Adongo, the Ranking Member on the Finance Committee in Parliament, has raised concerns over the recent staff review conducted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Ghana’s three-year Extended Facility Programme, despite the IMF’s positive evaluation positioning Ghana to receive the third tranche of $360 million from the total $3 billion IMF bailout package.
Adongo questioned the true state of Ghana’s economy, expressing skepticism about the IMF’s assessment and emphasizing the disparity between the IMF’s evaluation and the realities faced by Ghanaians.
He also criticized the IMF’s role as a consultant, suggesting that consultants rarely acknowledge the failure of their advice.
In response to the IMF’s report, Adongo emphasized the need for an independent audit into the alleged theft of Electoral Commission (EC) laptops.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has demanded an official written response to critical questions posed at an IPAC meeting regarding the status and recovery effort regarding the stolen biometric devices.
They also called for an immediate and comprehensive investigation into the theft, including a forensic audit of the voter’s register, to be conducted by an independent body and supplemented with international observers for neutrality and trust.
Additionally, the NDC is calling for a comprehensive audit of the EC’s inventory and security protocols covering all Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) and Biometric Verification Devices (BVD) equipment, to be performed by an independent auditor. They emphasized the need to ensure the integrity of all electoral materials.