Discussions between government officials\u00a0and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Ghana\u2019s proposal, have progressed very well, Minister of State at the Finance Ministry, Charles Adu Boahen has, said.<\/strong><\/p>\nSo far, he said, the team from the Finance Ministery that is currently in Washington DC, United States of America (USA), has had four separate meetings with the Fund.<\/p>\n
Addressing a press conference in the US last week, Mr Adu Boahen indicated that the Fund was pleased with the government\u2019s post Covid programme for economic growth.<\/p>\n
He said \u201cThe Fund was in Accra September 27\u00a0 to October 7 and I think the meetings were very well, they spent a lot of time, they released press statements\u00a0 at the end.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll in all, I they were quite pleased with the post Covid programme for economic growth\u00a0 that we put together which is what we believe\u00a0 would underpin the programme. They felt that the measures we have highlighted and the fiscal adjustment proposed, the structural reforms in line with their thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n
He reiterated the governments hope to close the deal by end of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are hoping to be able to conclude negotiations and get to start the agreement by the\u00a0 end of the year and so the discussions are ongoing. We have met with the team three or four times since we came in last week and discussions have progressed quite well on various fronts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are also very cognizant\u00a0 of being bale to\u00a0 incorporate into our budget\u00a0 some of the key\u00a0 policy decisions so that\u00a0 we wouldn\u2019t have to go back and revise the budget ones\u00a0 it is passed in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat has also been part of discussions , we are quite encouraged, we think that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Adu Boahen further underscored that the fact that all countries, whether in Europe or Africa or Asia, are facing similar economic challenges \u2013 high inflation, food insecurity, currency depreciation, rising youth unemployment.<\/p>\n
In his view, it doesn\u2019t appear that there is going to be any reprieve next year.<\/p>\n
To that end, he has asked all to continue to tighten their belts.<\/p>\n
Addressing a press conference in Washington DC, United States of America, he said \u201cThe general consensus across all the meetings I have attended is that we certainly are in the midst of global crisis. There is a saying that nowhere cool.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think coming here today,\u00a0 this week and the past week has really confirmed that we are not the only ones who have been going through very challenging times. Whichever country you engage the Ministers, whether being the West or in Africa or in Asia, their problems are similar \u2013 high inflationary pressures,\u00a0 currency depreciation, food insecurity, rising youth unemployment. It has really brought to the fore the fact that we need some unique solutions for these unique set of problems across board.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is also still quite a lot of uncertainty about the Russia-Ukrainian war and how it is going to end. It certainly seems that the understanding is that it is going to go into 2023, there seems to be the perception that 2023 is going to be tougher than 2022. If you look all at the forecasts you can see revisions have been made. These revisions have all been downwards, not upwards.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing that it may seem to have tapered off in the forecasts is, maybe, inflationary pressures but that of course will be based on the fact that this year has been so high, coming of a high base , it is unlikely that\u00a0 we will see the same high levels\u00a0 going into next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrude oil forecasts still seem to be in the high, double digits to triple digits.\u00a0 So essentially, from my impressions from meetings I have attended so far, it doesn\u2019t look like there is going to be any reprieve next year and so we need to continue to tighten our belts and look at some serious fiscal consolidations in the budget for 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Discussions between government officials\u00a0and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Ghana\u2019s proposal, have progressed very well, Minister of State at the Finance Ministry, Charles Adu Boahen has, said. So far, he said, the team from the Finance Ministery that is currently in Washington DC, United States of America (USA), has had four separate meetings with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1228838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[2660,2661,9896,3074,27687],"class_list":["post-1228834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-adu","tag-boahen","tag-discussions","tag-imf","tag-progressed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1228834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1228834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1228834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1228834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Adu-Boahen.png\" "\\"Adu")