Turn around story continues with IMF Board approval - Finance Minister

Government says the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Board approval of a $116 million is a further confirmation of the economic turnaround story.

The Finance Ministry says government is glad the IMF Board is satisfied with the developments made by Ghana and has approved the third review of the ECF programme.

Some $116 million was approved for disbursement to Ghana after the IMF Executive Board met on Wednesday and approved Ghana’s economic performance under the Third Review.

Mr Terkper expressed gratitude to all Ghanaians especially Parliament for their continued support during this time, a press release on Thursday said.

He promised government will continue its effort at fiscal consolidation and not be complacent with the present good news. In this vein, Government will continue to contain expenditures whilst mobilising domestic revenue.

“The prospect ahead is even brighter with the coming on board of the utilisation of the Policy Risk Guarantee to bring investments into the economy especially the oil and gas sectors," he said.

"The use of the integration of the oil and gas to the other sectors of the economy especially, fertiliser development for the agriculture sector and bitumen production for road infrastructure” Mr Terpker added.

The approval comes after the Fund's Mission visited Ghana for a meeting and assessment in April/May 2016, the effort by Ghana to meet the prior actions before the IMF Board date as well as the follow-up IMF Mission from August 29 to September 2, 2016, to update the data used in the review.

"To expedite action towards the ultimate completion of the Third Review by satisfying these new prior actions, several of which are structural in nature, government gave the completion of these activities its top priority," the release said.

Prior to this development, the government had secured an oversubscribed Eurobond, one of the only sovereigns in Africa to have done that in 2016.

This attracted global investors amidst the successful tender offer with the utilisation of the balances in the Sinking Fund account.

Following this achievement, is the successful Ghana COCOBOD raising of $1.8 billion bond from the international market.

The Moody’s Rating Agency affirmed Ghana’s ratings to B3 with a stable outlook just this week.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim | Email: [email protected]