IMF sets condition for approval of Ghana's third review

The third review by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of Ghana's performance under the three-year Extended Credit Facility (ECF) program will not be completed unless Ghana meets certain conditions agreed with the fund, IMF has said.

Team leader for Ghana's review team Joel Toujas-Bernate said although Ghana's performance had been broadly satisfactory to the IMF, with many above target performances, the country must do more before the review could be presented to the Executive Board of the fund.

Speaking to the media early this week, the team leader said there had been some delays in terms of the preparation of some new laws, in particular with regard to the Public Finance Management Law and the Amendment to the Bank of Ghana Act.

"Now, there is still some work to be done before we will be able to bring this third review to our executive board. As I said, work is still ongoing to finalize and bring to parliament the law on Public Financial Management as well as amendment to the Bank of Ghana ACT," Toujas-Bernate stated.

He added that another important element which was being worked on was the strategy to address the difficult financial conditions of State Owned Enterprises, in particular in the energy sector.

The IMF's estimation is that this strategy is very important to avoid additional fiscal pressures and a possible spill-over on the banking sector, as well as to sustain recent improvements that had been seen in the delivery of electricity.

"So, this element also needs to be worked out in detail and the IMF staff will be ready to assist the authorities in this work to speed up the work in the coming weeks so that we hope to come to a conclusion of the current review," the team leader added.

Ghana received the third tranche of the ECF of 83.025 million Special Drawing Rights (SDR) or 114.6 million U.S. dollars after the second review of Ghana's economic performance under the program.

That disbursement brought total disbursements under the arrangement to about 343.7 million dollars.

The three-year IMF program approved in February last year came along with an ECF of 918 million dollars or 180 percent of Ghana's IMF quota to be drawn over the period based on Ghana's adherence to the conditionalities.

After each successful review, the Executive Board of the fund meets to consider the review team's report before approving of the disbursement of the next tranche of finances to Ghana.

Part of the Bank of Ghana Amendment Act is to ensure the security of tenure of the governor of the central bank to insulate the position from central government control and manipulations. Enditem