Ghana Receives 2nd IMF Tranche By July

Christine Lagarde and Seth Terkper

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has indicated that it will disburse the second tranche of $114 million to the Government of Ghana in the first year of a 3-Year Extended Credit Facility (ECF) agreement it reached with the latter.

Thus for a period of three years, the Fund has agreed to part with $914 million (SDR 664.2 million) to help Ghana deal with the various challenges.

The first tranche of $114 million (SDR 83.025 million) was paid into the Bank of Ghana's account on April 14, 2015 and the last tranche for this year is expected to be released in November. Total disbursements for the first year is supposed to be SDR 249.075 million and an equivalent of SDR 415.125 million within the second year.

In a report initialed by the Managing Director of IMF, Christine Lagarde, she noted: 'The right of Ghana to request further disbursements during the second and third years of this arrangement shall be subject to such phasing and conditions as shall be determined in the context of reviews under the ECF arrangement for Ghana.'

She added that Ghana will not request the second and third disbursements under this arrangement specified if the Managing Director of the Trustee finds that with respect to the second disbursement, the data as of April 30, 2015, and with respect to the third disbursement, the data as of August 31, 2015 indicate that the floor on the primary cash fiscal balance of the government; or the ceiling on wages and salaries, or the floor on the net international reserves of the Bank of Ghana or the ceiling on net domestic assets of the Bank of Ghana or the ceiling on the net change in the stock of domestic arrears had not been observed.

Government has been dealing with rising public debt, cedi depreciation, high inflation rates, deepening power crisis and a host of economic problems since it assumed office.

However, it continues to give promises to Ghanaians that the situation would improve.

By Samuel Boadi