The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reached a staff level agreement on its first review of Ghana’s economic programme under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement.
A meeting in Accra which led by the Fund’s Mission Chief for Ghana, Stéphane Roudet, between September 25 and October 6, 2023 discussed progress on reforms and the government’s policy priorities in the its first review of the three-year programme.
In a press statement issued by the IMF staff team Friday, October 6, 2023, the Fund’s leader in Ghana, Mr. Roudet, noted that: “I’m very pleased to announce that the IMF staff and Ghanaian authorities have reached a staff-level agreement on the first review of Ghana’s economic programme under the Extended Credit Facility arrangement.”
“An agreement with official creditors on a debt treatment in line with programme parameters would provide the needed financing assurances”, he added.
According to him, Ghana, upon a completion of the Executive Board review, would have access to SDR 451.4 million (about $600 million), bringing the total IMF financial support disbursed under the arrangement, since May 2023, to SDR 902.8 million (about $1.200 billion).
Even though Ghana faces acute and financial economic crisis, Mr. Roudet noted the government has been able to adjust its macroeconomic policies, successfully completed its debt restructuring through the domestic debt exchange programme and launched wide-ranging reforms.
The steps taken so far, he indicated, are generating positive outcomes with the growth for 2023 showing resilience than initially anticipated. He also said the exchange rate is stabilizing with a declining inflation alongside a fiscal and external positions also on an ascendency.
“Consistent with the authorities’ commitments under the Fund-supported programme, fiscal performance has been strong, and Ghana is on track to lower the fiscal primary deficit on a commitment basis by about 4.0 percentage points of GDP in 2023. Spending has remained within programme limits,” parts of the statement contained.
Aside from extolling the government’s actualization of its non-oil revenue mobilisation target, the Fund also lauded the social protection programmes that were expanded to reach out to more vulnerable people during the economic crises.
“In light of Ghana’s compelling performance under the Fund-supported program, the critical next step is to secure an agreement with official creditors on the terms of a debt treatment consistent with the IMF Executive Board-approved program parameters and debt targets. We urge official creditors to move forward and agree on an appropriate debt treatment in line with the financing assurances they provided in May 2023,” the statement had in portions of it.
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