Ghana’s Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has stated that the current arrangement with the IMF is unlikely to address the country’s fundamental economic issues.
The Minister has also denied media reports that Ghana missed out on the November 1 timeline set in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme.
Meeting the deadline was to help Ghana get the second tranche of the $3 billion bailout package as the country’s debt rework negotiations with external creditors delay.
Ghana’s request for a $3 billion bailout was approved in May this year.
Following then, the first 600 million dollars were released to the Bank of Ghana.
The other releases were based on Ghana achieving specific Fund conditions, including increased domestic income mobilisation.
Speaking in an interview with JoyNews’ Emefa Apawu on The Probe on Sunday, November 12, the Minister maintained that Ghwna has not missed any deadline yet.
“The first review has been concluded and Ghana was successful in that review. I think at the end of that review, there was a joint conference between Ghana’s Finance Minister and the Head of the IMF team, and a staff level agreement was signed and announced to undergird our parts of the first review. And then it was mentioned that the staff level agreement would have to go to the IMF Executive board which board meets in the 3rd week of November to give its approval, and when that approval is given, then the second tranche would be disbursed.”
Actually, this is the structure for all the tranches. I think if I read the statement from the Ministry of Finance quite clearly, they made the point that once it is quite clear that the executive board meeting is in the third week of November, it will be incorrect for anyone to say that there is a timeline that has already been missed” he said.
“Anytime I speak about the IMF, I am quick to mention that the IMF transaction is not the solution to our problems. The IMF transaction is financing to underpin our PC-PEG [Post Crisis Programme for Economic Growth], which is our programme to recover from the economic challenges that we’ve had. The entire world has had economic challenges. In fact, I was watching a speech of the former President Mahama delivered abroad just about a week ago where he explains how the challenges in the global economy affected the Ghanaian economy. Everybody knows that there has been a global economic challenge and it has affected Ghana, and various countries have been developing their various plans.”
If you go to America, they’ve passed the Inflation Reduction Act, aimed at responding to some part of it in addition to their hikes in Monetary Policy rate. If you go to England, they’ve introduced the Energy Price Cap Guarantee and without a timeline on it, it sent some shocks into their investor market and affected currency. In Ghana, we introduced the PC-PEG, the Post Crisis Programme for Economic Growth, and we mentioned on the 1st of July 2022 that we needed funding to execute it, so what the IMF is providing is funding which is executing it.”
We have to back home, get aggressive with our economic measures so that on the economic policy front we can grow the economy, expand and create jobs for people, bring down cost of living, inflation and the cost of doing business. And then on the fiscal front as well, ensure that we narrow the gap between our revenue and expenditures” he added.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
