Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has said that the recent World Bank-International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting held in Marakesh, Morroco provided a platform to raise issues such as financial architecture recalibration and the challenges distressed countries faced due to the complexity of sovereign credit ratings, and how they compromised the way funds were distributed, especially, to developing economies.
Mr Ofori-Atta at the high-level meetings again advocated for requisite funding for Africa’s structural transformation owing to the fact that a quarter of the world’s population was going to be in Africa and that was close to one billion youth.
‘’With the increase of debt profile of a lot of developing countries, the question then becomes, how do we get access to more capital and how do we not demonise debt, and can debt be used to support growth? he quizzed.
On Ghana’s discussion with bilateral creditors, Mr. Ofori-Atta disclosed that the bilateral external debt restructuring was progressing well and moving ahead as planned on the official creditor side and expected good news in the coming months.
He added that, on the commercial side, negotiations were also going to become more concrete now that the Domestic Debt Restructuring was behind us stating that, ‘’These engagements take place on the back of constructive developments: the IMF first review was successful, and the Fund acknowledged that the recovery delivers above expectations’’.
The implementation of the US$3 billion 3-year IMF-supported PC-PEG, the Minister contended, had been very positive and assessment by the IMF in their recent Mission in Ghana for the 1st review of the IMF-Supported programme attested to the strong performance.
He responded to questions ranging from the weaknesses in the energy and cocoa sectors, access to climate/carbon finance, GDP growth this year, aggrieved customers of the defunct Gold Coast Fund Management demand for the payment of their investment, government’s plans in terms of job creation for the youth among others.
Present at the press briefing were Ghana’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco, H. E. Ambassador Samuel Joojo Effah-Broni, Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Director for Financial Sector Division of the Ministry of Finance, Sampson Akligoh, Director for Treasury and Debt Management Division of the Ministry, Samuel Arkhurst and other officials of the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana.