Gamey criticizes Ofori-Atta’s approach to new debt restructuring

Former Deputy Employment Minister, Austin Akufo Gamey says the approach the Minister of Finance, Kenneth Nana Yaw Ofori-Atta, and the government, by extension, are using to implement the new debt restructuring programme “is not good enough”.

“If I were the Minister of Finance, my approach will be 100 percent different from what they are doing now,” he said on Midday Live on TV3 on Tuesday, April 18.

The government is considering what it calls ‘Proposed Alternative Offer for Pension Funds’ but many consider this a new debt exchange programme.

Already, Organised Labour is agitated and has served notice that the agreement reached in December for government not to include workers’ pensions in such a programme still stands.

The Ministry of Finance is said to have written to the Board of Trustees of Pension Funds to request participation in the new programme.

‘Game plan’

Speaking on the issue, Mr Gamey, who is currently a labour consultant and Chief Executive Officer of Gamey and Gamey Academy of Mediation, said the proposal is only a “game plan” being employed by government as part of the conditionalities of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “It is a strategy they have to deploy to meet some of the requirements on the International Monetary Fund,” he stated.

He said the government is latching on to this last straw in a way that will not seem like they are touching pension funds.

But he said all over the world, pensions are “a major lifeblood of workers”, therefore, it will be difficult to convince workers with the current approach.

“We don’t do that to pension funds,” the former North Tongu Member of Parliament stressed.

He said there should be more engagement with labour in order to find a solution to this.

Source: 3news.com