President Akufo-Addo believes his government’s decision to go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $3 billion bailout was worthwhile.
That, he said, was evident in the recovery rate of the country’s economy which at the time was almost on its knees.
This was when Managing Director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, who is on a two-day visit to Ghana with a delegation from the Fund, called on him at the Jubilee House Sunday evening.
The President therefore said his administration will continue to implement sound economic policies as well as stay the course with regard to the current IMF programme the country is executing.
“It is obvious that the decision we made in July 2022 to come and seek your support for the difficult economic circumstances which we were involved as far as I am concerned is a decision that has already paid off. It has paid off in terms of the clear turn around that we are seeing in our economy.
“The very dire circumstances in which we were at the time we took that difficult decision and where we are today is a very clear testimony of the fact that our decision to seek your support was a decision that was correct, and we have had very positive benefits from it,” President Akufo-Addo remarked.
“The stronger than predicted growth, the systematic decline in inflation in Ghana and the decline of interest rates, the relatively stable exchange rate which we have had for our currency which was deeply troubled at one stage; these are all important signals that our economy is stabilizing.”
On her part, Managing Director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, said it was becoming clear to the IMF that confidence in the Ghanaian economy both domestically and externally is bouncing back.
She observed that the world economy has surprisingly remained resilient and its growth rate has been stronger than predicted.
“For Ghana, this year cannot be more decisive because it is the year to bring [back] confidence in Ghana domestically and internationally at the level it was before [the global economic challenges] or higher.
“It is possible because we are seeing a world economy that is slightly better, so the economy attitudes are better and the critical resource of money will go where confidence in the capacity of the country to perform is highest so Ghana can be at this place as it was before,” Kristalina Georgieva said.
“We need to stay the course, your growth is better than expected, your inflation is lower than expected, the progress in debt restructuring has been faster than expected and the task now is to cement what has been achieved,” Madam Georgieva added.
Ghana secured a $3 billion IMF extended credit facility (ECF) in 2023 after President Akufo-Addo on July 1, 2022, authorised the then Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, to commence formal negotiations with the IMF to secure a balance of payment support as part of broader efforts to quicken Ghana’s build back in the face of challenges induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and the geopolitical armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
The three-year IMF programme is in its first year of implementation, with the nation so far, receiving a total of 1.2 billion United States dollars from the IMF in two payment tranches of 600 million dollars each. Ghana has also completed negotiations with external creditors and there are ongoing discussions with external private creditors.
As part of her first visit to Ghana, Madam Kristalina Georgieva, together with the Minister for Finance, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam, will be participating in an Artificial Intelligence (AI) summit, which would be held at the Kempinski Hotel in Accra, under the theme “AI as a Catalyst to Transform Economies in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
There will also be a panel discussion that will take a look at the challenges and opportunities that Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents for emerging economies, particularly focusing on Ghana’s digitalisation and AI readiness.
The discussion will also aim at exploring strategies for harnessing AI for positive outcomes, examining its role in the 4th industrial revolution alongside technologies like cloud computing and the internet.
The panel will include the visiting IMF boss, Kristalina Georgieva; Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the Minister for Communications & Digitalisation; Dr. Patrick Awuah, President of the Ashesi University, and Dr. Jason Hickey, Head of Google’s AI Research Centre.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent