Borrowing: ‘No one rushing to the international capital market now’ – ken Ofori-Atta

There is no rush on the part of the government of Ghana to return to the international capital market now to borrow more following the IMF Board’s approval of Ghana’s 3-year-US$3 billion programme, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has stated in Washington DC at a post-board approval joint press conference.

“No, there is no rush to go back to international capital market”, he said in response to a question from a journalist during the Q&A session, noting: “Our expectation is that in managing our expenditure and increasing our revenue, we will have the resources to work”.

Mr Ofori-Atta said: “Working towards a capital market is important because we then get our ratings up and make the country more attractive for foreign investors, especially FDI”.

“But, rest assured that no one is rushing to international capital markets at this juncture”, he emphasised to the journalists.

Responding to a question on the country’s ability to reign in and deliver low inflation, Bank of Ghana governor Ernest Addison said “the problem in Ghana started only in January 2022 and, at the end of 2021, inflation was at 12.6 [per cent], and within a year, we had seen inflation rise to 54.1 per cent, partly because there was a difficulty in financing the budget” while noting also that “the access of the capital markets was not available, which led to, you know, central bank accommodation of government”.

“And, as you are aware, we have signed a Memorandum of Understanding not to cede with that going forward”, he indicated.

“We believe that that would help a great deal in making our monetary policies more effective”, Dr Addison remarked.

He said: “Already, you can see that inflation has begun a downward descent”.