The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has indicated that, it is confident Ghana’s second review programme will be completed to help approve some $360 million for the country by June 2024.
It follows some significant progress made by Ghana in securing an agreement with bilateral creditors on the country’s debt restructuring programme.
“Ghana’s process is on a very good path right now, and as you know the Ghana team was in country recently and reached staff level agreement with authorities on the Programme”, said Catherine Pattillo who is the Deputy Director in the IMF’s African Department.
She disclosed this on PM Express business edition on May 9, 2024, with host George Wiafe.
She pointed out that it is important for Ghana to reach an agreement on the debt restructuring with the creditors.
“The next step is for Ghana to reach agreement with their creditors and that will help us to move forward to complete the board meeting on Ghana by end of June 2024. I think that things are moving well”, she said.
Ghana’s Economic Growth under IMF programme
The IMF in its 2024 Regional Economic Outlook is projecting that Ghana will end 2024 with a growth rate of 2.8 percent.
This is similar to what government had projected in the 2024 Budget. The IMF in the same report projected a growth rate of 4.4 percent by 2025.
Ms Pattillo stated that growth has been hit by many difficulties, such as high inflation rate, high interest rates, and currency volatility shocks; all due to the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme.
“Despite these challenges, what we see is that growth has been more resilient than what we projected under the IMF Programme”, she said.
“Our estimates is that the economy could grow more than what it has been estimated under the IMF programme. We are looking at the economy doing an average of 5 percent from next year”, she added.
Ms. Pattillo explained that the projections will be dependent on government implementing the IMF programme thoroughly.
“We believe that continuous implementation of the IMF programme is very important here. Growth has been more resilient than what we had anticipated under Ghana’s programme with the IMF”
IMF and World Bank concerns
Speaking in Washington DC, USA during the launch of the Global Economic Outlook, Director of Research at the IMF, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas was worried about the current geopolitical tension in the Middle East. This, he warned could affect developing country like Ghana.
He also noted that election-related spending may pose a threat to the recovery of Ghana’s economy if not checked.
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