We’re ready to assist Ghana restore macroeconomic stability, says IMF

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said it is ready to support Ghana to save an economy battered by inflation, a pandemic slump and the war in Ukraine.

On Friday (1 July 2022), Ghana officially announced that it was seeking support from the IMF to help address the economic crisis.

Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said the president had “authorised Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta to commence formal engagements” with the IMF.

The announcement followed a phone conversation between Akufo-Addo and IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, he said.

In response, the resident representative of the fund, Dr Albert Touna-Mama confirmed the government’s position, adding the Fund is ready to support Ghana.

“We can confirm that the authorities have been in touch to request [the] Fund’s support to #Ghana’s own economic programme,” he tweeted on Friday, accompanying it with the information minister’s statement.

“The #IMF stands ready to assist #Ghana to restore macroeconomics stability; safeguard debt sustainability; promote inclusive and sustainable growth; and face the impact of the war in #Ukraine and the lingering pandemic. We are looking forward to meeting with the authorities in the coming weeks to start the initial discussions,” he added.

With domestic revenue mobilization not performing to budgetary expectations, coupled with the inability to raise money from the international capital market due to the downgrade of the economy by credit rating agencies, some experts have suggested to the government to seek the support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In a recent post on twitter, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, a political strategist and member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP): “Ghana is a member of the IMF. The world is in serious crisis. Ours is not helped by our high debt and low income levels. With the economy still growing, but investor confidence low, government being compelled to cut down capital expenditures will eventually lead to job losses unless …

“We do something that will inject confidence in our capacity to ride this heavy storm, and that something should happen pretty quickly. Are you against an IMF program?

Otchere-Darko added, “I am not for an IMF programme that throws peanuts at us but imposes conditions that will end up hurting the poor, jobs and businesses more. COVID-19 and war in Ukraine are not of Africa’s doing but more to our doom. A program that pretends it is all our doing is doomed to fail.”