Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta has emphasized the need for the country to remain optimistic about the economy as it was on a steady path to economic recovery.
According to the minister, the macroeconomic indicators had begun showing positive signs, and cited the drop in inflation figures and foreign currency stability as indications of the government turning the corner to instil confidence in the economy, which would give us true stability for an election year.
He made these known when he addressed a cross-section of the Ghanaian media in Marrakesh, Morocco, on the positive outcomes of the country’s engagement with its external partners and projections into the coming year.
The Minister, in his brief, disclosed that the delegation has had extensive deliberations, which included roundtable policy discussions with the Fund and World Bank on IMF policy priorities, the Poverty Reduction Growth Trust,and Ghana’s invitation to the G7 and G20 meetings, which alluded to Ghana international recognition as Africa’s beacon of hope.
Mr. Ofori-Atta revealed that the progress the country had made under the IMF External Credit Facility was evident and indicated the World Bank President’s assurance of the Bank’s support for the economy because we had stuck progressively to the programme.
‘’so we are in a good space and as we know the whole programme is predicated on the PC-PEG because the President has been very clear that the growth agenda is necessary which talks about the issues for jobs’’ the Finance Minister stated.
He stated that, the meetings provided him with a platform to raise issues such as financial architecture recalibration and the challenges distressed countries faced due to the complexity of sovereign credit ratings and how they compromised the way funds were distributed especially to developing economies.
‘’with the increase of debt profile of a lot of developing countries, the question then becomes, how do we get access to more capital and how do we not demonise debt and can debt be used to support growth? he quizzed.
The Minister at the high level meetings again advocated for requisite funding for Africa’s structural transformation owing to the fact that a quarter of the world’s population was going to be in Africa and that was close to 1 billion youth.
On Ghana’s discussion with bilateral creditors, Mr. Ofori-Atta disclosed that the bilateral external debt restructuring was progressing well and moving ahead as planned on the official creditor side and expected good news in the coming months.
He added that, on the commercial side, negotiations were also going to become more concrete now that the Domestic Debt Restructuring was behind us stating that ‘’These engagements take place on the back of constructive developments: the IMF first review was successful and the Fund acknowledged that the recovery delivers above expectations’’.
The implementation of the US$3 billion 3-year IMF-supported PC-PEG, the Minister contended, had been very positive and assessment by the IMF in their recent Mission in Ghana for the 1st review of the IMF-Supported programme attested to the strong performance.
‘’Ghana is observing, just 5 months after the Programme was approved by the IMF Executive Board on 17th May 2023. As you may recall, Government of Ghana officially requested for an IMF on 1st Jul 2022 and by 12th Dec 2022 we had reached a Staff Level Agreement (SLA)’’ he underscored.
He responded to questions ranging from the weaknesses in the energy and cocoa sectors, access climate/carbon finance, GDP growth this year, aggrieved customers of the defunct Gold Coast Fund Management, now Blackshield Company Limited’s demand for the payment of their investment after several years, government’s plans in terms of job creation for the youth among others.
Present at the press briefing were Ghana’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco, H.E Ambassador Samuel Joojo Effah-Broni, Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Director for Financial Sector Division of the Ministry of Finance, Sampson Akligoh, Director for Treasury and Debt Management Division of the Ministry, Samuel Arkhurst and other officials of the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana.
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