Ghana has exceeded an vital benchmark below the Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF) programme of accelerating the nation’s gross worldwide reserve. This has been achieved a yr forward of the completion date of the programme in Could 2026.
Knowledge launched after a staff-level settlement between the federal government and the IMF, signifies that Ghana’s gross worldwide reserve hit $9.3 billion as of as of February 2025. That is equal to 4 months of import cowl.
Ghana was anticipated to achieve the edge by center of 2026 below the programme.
Reacting to the event, senior finance lecturer on the College of Ghana Enterprise College, Dr Benjamin Amoah described the feat as a superb growth that would maintain the cedi’s stability.
“I believe it is a good growth for the cedi. Enhancing the reserves will ship a constructive sign to buyers that the foreign money is in a superb place”, he stated.
He suggested the federal government to proceed with the debt sustainability measures to additional enhance the nation’s reserves.
Gov’t and IMF attain staff-level settlement
Ghana and the IMF reached a staff-level settlement on a bundle of financial insurance policies and reforms to conclude the fourth assessment of the 36-month Financial Credit score Facility (ECF)-supported programme on April 15, 2025.
This staff-level settlement is topic to the chief board’s consideration.
Upon completion of the chief board assessment, Ghana would have entry to SDR 267.5 million (about US$370 million). This can deliver the full IMF monetary help disbursed below the association since Could 2023 to SDR 1,708 million, roughly US$2.355 billion.
The Fund in a communique stated development in 2024 was increased than anticipated, underpinned by sturdy mining and development exercise.
“The exterior sector has seen a substantial enchancment, pushed by stable exports, notably gold and, to a lesser extent, oil, and better remittances. In consequence, worldwide reserves accumulation has far exceeded the ECF-supported programme targets”, it harassed.
However these achievements, the Fund indicated that the general efficiency below the IMF-supported programme deteriorated markedly at end-2024.
“Preliminary fiscal knowledge level to slippages within the run-up to the 2024 common elections, on account of a giant accumulation of payables. Inflation exceeded programme targets. A number of reforms and coverage actions have been delayed throughout the fiscal, monetary, and power sectors”, it added.
Towards this backdrop, it identified that the brand new authorities have taken daring measures to deal with coverage slippages and make sure the programme goals stay inside attain.
On the fiscal entrance, the federal government has launched an audit of the payables to agency up the scale and nature of the slippages. Based mostly on preliminary estimates of recent payables, the first steadiness posted a deficit of some 3¼ p.c of Gross Home Product (GDP) in comparison with a focused surplus of ½ p.c of GDP.
To deal with these slippages, the IMF alluded that the federal government has enacted a 2025 Funds that targets a 1½ p.c of GDP main surplus and adopted a number of public monetary administration reforms. The latter contains an enhanced fiscal accountability framework and new guidelines to tighten expenditure commitments.
The IMF mission, which was in Ghana final week engaged the authorities on their wide-ranging structural reform program, with a concentrate on enhancing governance and transparency and strengthening State-Owned Enterprises administration within the gold, cocoa, and power sector.
The workers met with the Finance Minister Forson, Financial institution of Ghana Governor, Dr. Johnson Asiama, and their groups, in addition to representatives from varied authorities companies and different stakeholders.
It expressed its gratitude to the Ghanaian authorities and different counterparts for his or her continued open and constructive engagement.
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