President John Dramani Mahama is confident that the Ghanaian economy will soon be back on a sound economic footing and is courting sympathy and support from Ghanaians.
The President’s optimism comes on the back of the announcement last Friday of International Monetary Fund’s approval of Ghana’s request for a bailout package.
Mr Mahama made the remarks when he joined Muslim leaders in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region to celebrate the birth of Prophet Mohammed.
The IMF approved an extended credit facility worth $918 million last Friday for Ghana after several months of deliberations.
Ghana turned to the IMF last year for a bailout as a result of dire macro-economic conditions occasioned by high inflation rates, depreciation of the Ghana cedi, a huge public sector wage bill and host of other factors including a worsening power crisis which were crippling the economy.
Finance Minister, Mr Seth Terkper has said that the expected initial tranche of $114 million will be used to shore up the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) declining reserves.
Early this year, many experts warned especially of monumental loss in value of the cedi if Ghana failed to clinch the IMF deal. Razi Khan of the Standard Chartered Bank projected an end of year value of GH¢4.20 for the local currency against the dollar, unless
Describing the IMF deal as good news for Ghana, President observed that “it allows us to work together with our bilateral and multilateral partners to stabilize our economy and accelerate the growth of our economy.”
President Mahama however pointed out that the success of the IMF’s three-year extended credit facility approved for Ghana will largely depend on Ghanaians.
The country would have to work hard and be disciplined in its spending to achieve the objective of the programme.
“This needs a lot of hard work on our own part because the success of the extended credit facility will depend principally on ourselves, not on the IMF, not on the World Bank or not on our development partners. It means that we must exercise fiscal discipline and we must live within our means,” he explained.
The bailout package will allow government to deepen social protection interventions to help cushion the poor and vulnerable in society.
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