Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson reveals the economic recovery plan initiated in Ghana with IMF involvement, Debt Relief, and reprocessing of the cocoa sector as the new administration under President Mahama assumes office, and attempts to alleviate the fate of Ghana’s economy.
Ghana’s newly appointed finance minister, Cassiel Ato Forson, has let slip plans to close even more on NGOs from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as it pushes toward getting the country’s teetering economy back on its feet.
At a briefing on Thursday in preparation for a meeting with an IMF team in Accra, Forson indicated that collaboration with local and foreign partners is crucial to ensure timely inflow of needed resources.
It has not been of much use, the dependence on treasury bills and so on, ” remarked Forson, an experienced economist and former deputy finance minister. He also committed to reduce public expenditure cuts and waste as a means to control inflation and to restart domestic bond issuance by mid-year.
The west african country, which defaulted on a significant part of its external debt in 2022, now finds itself in the challenging task of debt restructuring, almost finished at this point.
As Forson states, in the course of the effort to reach the completion of debt restructuring, there will be a final negotiation between the government and non-Eurobond commercial creditors in order to finalize the debt restructuring.
President John Dramani Mahama, with a victory achieved within days of his December election, has promised to restore the Ghanaian economy through employment creation and the restoration of public trust. Other important ministerial duties of his include John Abdulai Jinapor(energy minister) and Dominic Akuritinga Ayine(minister of justice).
Forson further highlighted the extremely necessary obligation of “reengineer” the Ghanaian cocoa industry in the sense of overcoming the financial and production shortfalls and so on. Parliament (which at this point retains a majority in favour of Mahama’s NDC) also must now give approval of his miniseries.
The Mahama Government is now in power and the country’s economy is at its lowest point in decades, and with global markets closely watching, what’s next is the big question.
