IMF decides on Ghana’s fate today
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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is expected to meet today and decide on its third tranche of support to Ghana under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) programme.
Government has expressed optimism that the IMF would approve an amount of $114.6 million to it.
A Deputy Minister of Finance, Mona Quartey, who disclosed this to the media in Accra recently, stated: “We are optimistic that the board will approve the next tranche of the facility for Ghana. The board is meeting on the 28th of this month and shortly after the approval should come. The data has been gathered and was delivered last week. What we are waiting for is for the management of the IMF board to discuss and approve the next tranche of the credit facility”.
About two weeks ago, government hinted that it was working to present data on the country’s energy sector to the IMF which could possibly facilitate the release of the third tranche of the bailout funds.
Government has stated that the information was necessary as the Fund considered the power sector as one of the critical factors to the progress of the bailout deal.
Under the ECF programme with Ghana initialed by the IMF and the Government of Ghana on 3rd April, last year, a total amount of $918 million was agreed to be released to Ghana as balance of payments support over a 3-year period.
In all, the IMF is to make eight equal tranches over the entire period of the ECF agreement.
A team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), led by Joël Toujas-Bernaté, visited Accra from August 29-September 2, 2016 to continue discussions on the third review of Ghana’s financial and economic programme.
The ECF is a lending arrangement of the IMF that provides sustained programme engagement over the medium to long-term in case of protracted balance of payments problems.
Ghana received an amount of $114.75 million immediately after the Board’s approval of the first tranche in April last year.
By Samuel Boadi
ABOUT: Nana Kwesi Coomson
[email protected] An Entrepreneur, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Communications Executive and Philanthropist. Editor-in-Chief of www.233times.com. A Senior Journalist with Ghanaian Chronicle Newspaper. An alumnus of Adisadel College where he read General Arts. His first degree is in Bachelor of Arts - Political Science (major) and History (minor) from the University of Ghana. He holds MSc in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Energy with Public Relations (PR) from the Robert Gordon University in the United Kingdom. He is a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow who studied at Clark Atlanta University in USA on the Business and Entrepreneurship track.
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