Member of Parliament  for Old Tafo and member of the Finance Committee in parliament, Dr. Anthony AkotO  Osei has maintained that the International Monetary Fund has no choice but to accept parliament’s approval of the Bank of Ghana Amendment Bill.

The IMF team in charge of Ghana’s three-year bailout program has expressed displeasure at the passage of the BOG Amendment bill which keeps thresholds of the  Central Bank’s financing of government’s budget at 5%.

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However, as part of conditions under the $918 million bailout program with Ghana, the Central Bank is required to reduce its five percent financing of the annual budget to 0%. This was supposed to be solidified by the amendment of the BOG Amendment Bill which hitherto placed the threshold at 5%.

The move has led to the suspension of the release of the third tranche of Ghana’s IMF funds, which should have been transferred in August.

Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei, however  says, “Parliament is a sovereign body and parliament thought that for the nation Ghana, that was not the best option so parliament kept to that side. If they [IMF] had an agreement with government that parliament did not like, parliament has the right to reject it,” he said.