US to seek Paris Club’s support for Ghana

The United States government has promised to intervene on Ghana’s behalf with the Paris Club as the country seeks debt forgiveness as part of the International Monetary Fund’s balance of payment support.

The US Vice President, Kamala Harris, announced this at a joint Press Conference with President Akufo-Addo.

According to Mrs Harris, the US will help Ghana with all the support it needs to ensure that it scales through its current economic crisis.

“We welcome Ghana’s commitment to reform its economy for sustainable and inclusive growth. We support Ghana’s engagement with the IMF, and we will continue to push all bilateral creditors to provide meaningful debt reduction for countries that need it.

“It is critical to do so to build long-term economic growth and prosperity and to increase US investments. Our partnership is already strong, and I believe that today we have strengthened it.”

The US has also announced that its Department of Treasury’s Office of Technical Assistance (OTA) will deploy a full-time resident advisor to assist the Ministry of Finance to develop and execute medium-to-long-term reforms needed to improve debt sustainability and support a competitive, dynamic government debt market.

The project, according to the USA will complement and build on the Government of Ghana’s debt restructuring efforts.

This project is part of OTA’s ongoing engagement to strengthen public financial management and financial sector oversight across sub-Saharan Africa.

Ghana, which is struggling with its worst economic crisis in a generation, secured a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in December for a $3 billion loan, though asking lenders to provide financing assurances is a condition for the IMF’s board to sign off the programme.