Ghana must stick to the course of the IMF programme — IMF
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged Ghana to stick to the course of the three year programme with the fund.
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Speaking at a press briefing in Washington DC, Director of the IMF’s African Department, Abebe Selassie, said Ghana had so far implemented the programme effectively but noted that what was critical going forward was sticking to the course.
“What I can say is that going forward it would be really, really important that Ghana continues to implement the programme that they have developed as envisaged.
“That is really critical. These programmes are designed to be implemented over three, four years and it is important that Ghana sticks to the course and see the programme being implemented over the next three years,” he stated.
He said the IMF therefore looks forward to continuing to support Ghana, consistent with the programme implementation.
After a difficult two years which saw inflation hit a 22 year high of 54.1 per cent and an unsustainable public debt, Ghana officially approached the IMF in July 2022 for a $3 billion fund supported programme.
The country’s programme was subsequently approved at the staff level in December 2022 and received board level approval in May 2023 after the country received financing assurances from the bilateral official creditor committee co chaired by France and China.
Months after implementing the IMF programme, macro-economic stability appears to be emerging again, with inflation declining to 23.2 per cent in December 2023 and public debt also declining to 66.4 per cent by September 2023.
Economic growth has also rebounded, averaging 3.2 per cent in the first two quarters of 2023.
Quite recently, the board of the IMF approved the first review of Ghana’s programme, paving the way for the disbursement of second tranche of $600 million, bringing the total money disbursed under the programme to $1.2 billion.
Mr Abebe Selassie said the approval of the review was due to the policies that the government has been putting in place to address the huge imbalances Ghana was facing through last year.
He said another factor was the official creditors signaling that they will provide debt relief, consistent with what Ghana needs.