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The Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC) has stated that Ghana does not need the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to successfully implement policies that will change the economic fortunes of the country. �We need strong and bold leaders who can formulate and implement appropriate made-in-Ghana policies,� it said, stressing that �we are ready to work with the government to implement such home-grown policies but not IMF-sponsored policies.� This was contained in a statement signed by the acting Secretary-General, Dr Yaw Baah, in response to the government�s 2015 Budget Statement and Economic Policy to Parliament last Wednesday. It said that the TUC would issue a more comprehensive analysis and assessment of the budget after fully studying its contents. Senchi Consensus It said given the challenges the economy had faced in the current fiscal year, the TUC expected the 2015 Budget to be radically different from the IMF-sponsored policies of the last 30 years that brought the economy almost to the brink. �We expected the budget to fully reflect the Senchi Consensus as basis for economic transformation. But we regret to note that government policies have remained stealthily unchanged. We do not believe that the same policies that nearly led to the collapse of our economy can solve our economic and social problems, especially the excruciating poverty that has afflicted over seven million of our compatriots,� it said. The statement said despite the huge employment challenge, the budget, in a typical IMF tradition, had no target for employment creation. �We are not surprised that the Minister of Finance boldly announced that the net employment freeze in the public sector will continue. We insist that government has to create more jobs in some of the public services, with special reference to education, health, sanitation and security sectors,� it stated. State institutions The statement said the TUC had taken note of the proposal to strengthen state institutions such as the Factories Inspectorate Division, expand the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme, the plans to address the current power crisis, as well as the proposals to support private sector development, introduce progressive free secondary education and improve governance, including dealing with corruption. The statement described the proposals as laudable except that �they are not new and we do not find any new ideas and measures in the budget that would make these interventions work this time�. It, therefore, called for specific and more radical measures to change course.