Government not pulling out of IMF programme - Finance Minister clarifies

The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, has clarified that government is not pulling out of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme; rather, the IMF programme will end December 2018.

This clarification was necessitated after the president’s response to a question asked him during the first ‘Meet the Press’ held on 18th July 2017, where he mentioned Ghana will not enter a new deal with the IMF beyond the current programme.

The response given by the president which was ‘There is no question of the IMF programme being extended. It is coming to an end next year with the budget that we are going to prepare" seems to have been misinterpreted by a section of the media.

According to the Finance Minister, Ghana will complete the IMF programme through its budget cycle of January 2018 through to December 2018 as stated by the President.

This goes to say, after the completion of the programme at the end of the budget cycle, government will not extend it.

He added that this should not be misinterpreted to mean government is pulling out of the IMF programme.