Ghana’s Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has described the year 2022 as his “most difficult” year in office.
Mr. Ofori Atta who was presenting the mid-year budget review to parliament on Monday, 31 July 2023 that on 1 July 2022, confessed that they took what was then a very difficult but necessary decision to request support from the IMF to implement our Post-COVID-19 Programme of Economic Growth (PC-PEG).
He acknowledged the country was going through a difficult period of economic uncertainties and despondency.
He said, “We have turned the corner and, more importantly, we are determined to continue down that path. Soon, we expect the measures taken to result in economic activity greater than anything experienced in the history of the Fourth Republic”.
“our plans and programmes should soon lead to a sustained increase in domestic production, including manufacturing and farming, replacing many of the products that we are used to importing”.
According to the Finance Minister, when he presented the Budget in November 2023, he indicated that they would pursue major fiscal and monetary policy measures within the framework of the PC-PEG – our coordinated response to the macro-fiscal challenges, which H.E the President charged us to develop in March 2022, before going to the IMF – thus the PC-PEG.
He further said, “Parliament passed the revenue, and expenditure measures as well several other macro-critical economic policies we presented in the 2023 Budget, and we are grateful for that”.
“Along these lines, we also needed to create additional fiscal space by i. negotiating an International Monetary Fund (IMF) Programme; ii. Concluding a debt operations program; and iii. Attracting significant investments (especially green investments) for a vibrant growth strategy.”
“I can now report that we have been diligent and resolute in implementing these measures and successfully: i. Negotiated the US$3 billion 3-year IMF-ECF Programme, which was approved on 17th May, 2023 to support the implementation of our PC-PEG. ii. Concluded on February 14th the initial part of the Debt Operations, of which the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP); iii. Developed a framework for the V20 Climate Prosperity Plan to attract climate investments from the private sector; and iv. Initiated the Mutual Prosperity Dialogue to crowd in domestic and external private investment to underpin our growth strategy”.
Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana
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