By King Amoah, Editor. connectghananews@gmail.com
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has stated that his government hopes to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund in February.
According to the president, the agreement will, in addition to allowing the economy to recover and repair the country’s public finances, “rebuild the confidence of outsiders in our economy and our own self-confidence in the manner in which the economy can proceed.”
“We are going through that process with them (IMF) right now as we speak, and hopefully by the end of this month or by the middle of February, a full-fledged IMF agreement will be in place,” the president said at the Jubilee House while interacting with students from Harvard University in the United States.
In the latter half of 2022, the Ghanaian government reached a staff-level agreement with IMF officials for a $3 billion loan facility.
The government, according to the president, is committed to meeting the requirements of the staff-level agreement in order to reach an agreement with the IMF board.
“We will succeed in implementing the various considerations of the staff-level agreement, which will allow us to have a full IMF agreement,” the president is quoted as saying in a report by Myjoyonline.com.
Following its staff-level agreement with the IMF, Ghana’s government announced a Debt Exchange Programme.
However, there are concerns about the IMF agreement’s success because the Debt Exchange Programme has been widely rejected by government bondholders.
“Anybody who’s been contacted by your bank, write, back to your bank saying you will not accept it. Anyone who has money in any of the funds, whether the data bank, M fund, or a balanced fund, does not accept it. It does not bode well for your good or the economy, and you are under no obligation to accept it,” Senyo Hosi, Convener of the Individual Bondholders Forum, recently stated in the media.
The Debt Exchange Programme is one of the conditions for the government to obtain IMF board approval.
Ghana’s government is hoping to receive the loan in order to save the country’s severely damaged economy.
