Economist, Dr. Ishmael Yamson, says he doubts Ghana’s ability to recover from its economic distress in the next three years as being projected by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

According to him, the World Bank and the IMF are making assumptions on the hopes that the country’s economic management team will be disciplined enough to act responsibly and pass good policies.

He said, so far, the government has yet to give him a reason to be hopeful about the future of the country.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express Business Edition, he said, “I mean, for instance, the next three years that I’ve seen the World Bank say the economy will begin to grow, if it happens we thank God. But they’re assuming so many things.

“They’re assuming for instance that we’re going to stop doing all the bad things we used to do. That’s the first thing, that’s the very fundamental assumption, ‘these guys are going to be straightforward, disciplined’. What I see doesn’t give me that optimism.”

He added that the Bretton-Woods institutions are also making assumptions on the hopes that the external factors that worsened what he described as Ghana’s homegrown problems would be resolved in the shortest possible time.

“They’re also assuming that even the external environment will not continue to be as harsh as it has been. Because yes, our problem our problem initially was homegrown and then of course we had external issues compounding those issues that we were facing. I know that if you leave it to government they’ll always tell you it’s covid-19 and all of those things. I don’t believe any of those things,” he said.

Ghana is currently subscribed to a three year long IMF programme for fiscal consolidation following the country’s suffering debt distress, and its subsequent ousting from the international capital market.

According to Dr. Ishmael Yamson, the country should have no excuse been in a debt distress.

He has blamed leaders of misusing the nation’s resources instead of building the country.

“This country, literally, we don’t have any excuse to be in distress. God was so gracious onto us; God gave us everything including big brains like you. We have the people, we have the resources. What we have done is just misuse all those that God has given us,” he said.