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As the Mahama-administration dispatches Ghana's negotiating team to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC in the United States for further talks on the financial bailout, the IMF says figures presented by the government are not accurate and that they have been grossly massaged. According to the IMF, it has detected disparities in statistical figures churned out by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) on Ghana's economy during its recent discussions with government in Accra. Reacting to a question at a Fiscal Monitor Report briefing in Washington on Wednesday, Sanjeev Gupta, Deputy Director, Fiscal Affairs Department, said Ghana's debt profile is over 70% of GDP and not 35% as claimed by the Bank of Ghana. "First of all, the debt-to-GDP ratio in Ghana is 71% not 60%; so it is much higher than you mentioned. I think you raised the question whether countries should be borrowing abroad or not. I think it is a very good idea to be able to borrow the money and use it effectively for development and building infrastructure. What we have noticed, not necessarily in the case of Ghana, but in many other countries, is that increases in that borrowing has not necessarily been accompanied by higher spending on infrastructure on the capital side, but has been accompanied by increase in spending on the current side. So, that has an impact on the ability to repay this debt," Gupta said. The IMF's revelation of economic-data massaging tallies with the observations of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, a former Deputy Governor of the Bnak of Ghana and running mate to the 2012 NPP Presidential Candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, that figures released by the BoG, especially on inflation and the country's debt portfolio, are questionable because they don't make economic sense in view of market trends. Ghana has been caught in huge debt repayment three times more than the proceeds from oil revenue - which the IMF says is not sustainable. According to the IMF, Ghana's public debt situation could reach over 70% of the country's total economic output by 2015 per its assessment of Ghana's actual public debt. On the country�s debt levels, he said �given that there was pressure mounting within the system itself, it would be a good idea to consolidate sooner than later and this would entail trying to restrain pressures on wages, containing the outlays on subsidies.� Job Cuts Gupta noted that government would have to take tough measures to address the situation, adding that Ghanaians are likely to feel the pinch of the restructuring measures to be instituted from January next year. There are speculations that government is contemplating downsizing its work force in the coming months because of what it called huge wage bills. A report by the IMF�s Fiscal Monitor painted a gloomy picture, indicating that Ghana�s situation could be dicey because anytime a country�s debt exceeds 60 percent of its total economic activity, its stability gets threatened. The report details the expenditure and revenue mobilisation trends of governments the world over.