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Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has refuted media reports suggesting that Ghana has been listed as a Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) due to its declining economic situation.
According to him, the government did not ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World Bank to be included in the HIPC program and urged the public to ignore those false reports.
Mr. Oppong Nkrumah responded to the allegations at the fifth edition of Nation Building Updates in Accra.
The minister said those viral fake news reports were part of a broad and deliberate strategy by some people to mislead the public ahead of the December 7 elections.
He noted that currently the IMF or the World Bank are not running any ongoing HIPC programs.
“We (the government) say categorically that it is not true that Ghana has been declared HIPC or that it has been added to a list of HIPC countries. The Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative or the HIPC Initiative was a particular program that was implemented by international organizations such as the World Bank, IMF, and donor partners in 2001.
“It was a program limited to a particular moment where Ghana and other countries applied, benefited from it and went out and it was over. Currently, there is no HIPC program in progress for any country to apply for.
“So if someone is spreading and adding a narrative that Ghana is now a HIPC and has been listed in an IMF or World Bank post as such, we want to encourage all Ghanaians and the media to be cautious and be conscious is not true. It is a false narrative, ”he explained.
He added that the government led by Akufo-Addo upon taking office in 2017 was implementing strategic programs and policies that restored the bad economic situation inherited from the previous government and that all macroeconomic and fiscal indicators were heading in the right direction.
The burgeoning economic status, the minister said, enabled the Akufo-Addo-led government to implement various social interventions, such as the free supply of water and subsidized electricity to consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
Mr. Oppong Nkrumah explained that the government led by Kufuor, after inheriting a bad economy in 2001, requested the HIPC program, which resulted in the cancellation of parts of the country’s debts and has since exited the program.
The Minister urged the media to carry out a thorough cross-check of any information long before it was published, as some people had come up with the plan to spread fake news before the elections.
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