GHANA WINS $ 1.6B IN AID PLEDGES

Ghana won US$ 1.6b in aid plegdes from foreign donors on Wednesday. The World Bank said a two-day donors meeting in Paris ended with US$ 1.6 billion in programme and project aid for 1996 and 1997, according to the Peoples' Daily Graphic.

It urged Ghana to intensify its privatisation efforts despite social and political presures.

We 'd come here with some apprehensive because we thought the donors would feel uneasy about aid" after recent protest inthe country, Finance Minister Kwesi Botchwey told a news conference.

"But we came here seeking US$ 1.6 billion and that is what we got. Donors are committed to our reform plans and the government has no intention of slowing down the reform process because of social situation in Ghana," he said.

The protectors, he added, had been demonstrating chiefly against Value Added Tax - which has since bee dropped - and sharp food price hikes caused by poor harvest.

Ghana whose economy has grown on average by five per cent a year since 1983, has won praise broad for persevering with a decade of tough reform under the guidance of the World Bank and the international Monetry Fund.

Olivier Lafourcade, the Bank's West Central Africa Director, said the plegdes of US$ 2.1 billion because Ghana had trimmed its aid dependence.

Botchwey said hid government's priority was the eradication of poverty and that donors and the bank had agreed to try and improve monitoring of poverty.

Ghana's five -member government delegation to the three-day Consultative Group Meeting included Mr. P . V. Obeng, Presidential Advicer on governmental affairs, Mr.K. B. Ammisah-Arthur, Deputy Minster of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr. Twum Barimah, Deputy Government Statistician and Mr. Godwin Amuzu of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.