ACCRA Ghana's new government has said empty coffers have forced it to accept a debtridden status, sparking widespread criticism from both opposition parties and trade unions.

Finance Minister Yaw Osafo-Maafo who had declared while presenting the budget for the 2001 fiscal year that the government had decided to join the highly indebted poor countries initiative stressed yesterday that the country had no options before it.

He said that until March 5 he had been against Ghana joining the scheme, which allows cash-strapped economies limited loan waivers, to be ploughed back into poverty alleviation programmes but changed his mind just before the budget speech.

He said a British expert and an International Monetary Fund (IMF) team of economists, who carried out two separate surveys on the issue, came to the same conclusion. "It is not that you are poor, but you have a cash flow problem," he quoted them as saying.

Meanwhile, the opposition National Democratic Congress criticised the government for opting to join the initiative. Former junior finance minister and party official, Moses Asaga, said "powerful" countries such as France were against the initiative as "they have seen (its) inherent dangers".

President John Kufuor, elected in January, has said his predecessor, Jerry Rawlings, left Ghana in a mess.