News:
April 23, 2020
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has said the one billion US dollars Rapid Credit Facility from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved by Parliament is to support growth, reduce poverty and push the transformation agenda to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.
According to him, the IMF projects a global recession this year and for sub-Sahara Africa, a growth of minus one point six (-1.6) and that of Ghana has been downgraded to one point five (1.5).
“The money would be made available to Bank of Ghana which would help address balance of payment”, he said.
After the debate to approve one billion dollars to tackle COVID-19, he told the House in winding up the debate that February this year, Ghana went to the International Market to raise three billion dollars before the market closed.
Mr. Ofori-Atta noted that on the African continent, no country has the physical space to confront the COVID-19 pandemic hence the need to be backed by effective financial policy system as government of Ghana would continue to look for resources to bridge the gap.
“These are extra ordinary times and extra ordinary measures should be taken to ensure that our people are protected, looking at the resources Africa has in these recession times we would not be able to protect our people without taking some serious measures”.
He further told the House, the world economy would move into a steep decline and then gradually rise; that of Ghana would be worse for two or three years and go through a sloping curve downwards before gradually recovering.
“We should get ourselves ready for that, Ghana and South Africa have been working with IMF where we can have some suspension of our interest payment and principal payment for this year. We have about forty-four billion dollars that Africa has to pay this year with various interest I think we have made some progress and with the support of G20 interest, would be differed for nine months and at least we are going to push for two years in doing”.
The Finance Minister assured the House that he would be coming to the House anytime it is necessary in the mid-year to give account of what the Finance Ministry is doing as there are programme realigned to the budget with resources that he would leave no stone unturned.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com