IMF Supports Ghana's Request

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has told the donor community that the Fund strongly supports Ghana’s request for $55 million to meet her external financing requirement for this year.

Ghana’s total external financing requirement for this year amounts to about $1.1 billion.

Identified donor support including that from the World Bank is about $650 million whilst about $135 million is expected from the IMF and $250 million from debt relief.

IMF Representative in Ghana, Mr. Erinque de la Pieda, speaking at the ongoing Consultative Group Meeting in Accra underlined the need for fir commitment and timely delivery of external assistance from development partners for Ghana this year.

“This is an important year as the authorities attempt to consolidate progress in stabilizing the economy while at the same time making good on their pledges to improve public services and upgrade the nation’s infrastructure,” Mr. Pieda said.

He is convinced that if implemented rigorously, the programme for the year ahead will help significantly to move Ghana on to a path of more rapid and sustainable economic growth as well as poverty reduction.

“The past year saw pronounced improvement in all key macro-economic indicators as the authorities set about rectifying the damage done during 2000 by a combination of adverse shocks and serious loss of financial discipline,” the IMF Rep said.

He added that, consequently, the 12-month inflation fall from a high of 42 per cent to 21 per cent, the Cedi-US dollar exchange rate depreciated by less than 4 per cent during 2001 compared to almost 50 per cent in 2000. the foreign exchange position began to recover with the net international reserve position of the Bank of Ghana moving back into the black in the fourth quarter of 2001, Pieda told the meeting.

He referred to the IMF and the World Bank’s approval of Ghana’s decision point under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative by which the country stands to gain $2.2 billion, the second largest debt relief package provided to an African country.

World Bank Country Rep, Peter Harrold also agrees that there has been a remarkable turn around in the macro-economic situation that could have easily spun out of control.

He contended that after the modest gain, the key thing now is that this be maintained and consolidated, while programme and budgetary support will undoubtedly be needed for this.

Harrold said the meeting is an opportunity to deepen the understanding of and for reaching an agreement on the way forward to address the poverty and developmental issues in the country.