Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Dr. Said Boakye has urged the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana to double up with negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to secure the needed support for the economy.

According to him, the support from IMF could help to improve government finances and in turn, help the “capital and financial account to get in some inflows.”

“The Fiscal authorities have to double up with the negotiations with the IMF to get a deal,” he reiterated.

Dr. Boakye said this on JoyNews’ PM Express on Tuesday. The topic for discussion was “sustaining the marginal gains in the performance of the cedi.”

He added that getting the needed inflows could make it easy for the government to go on and borrow although it is not a good solution in the long-term.

Dr. Boakye’s comments come after the Ghana Cedi on Tuesday was reported to be trading at GHC9.90 to the United States dollar in what analysts say is a significant appreciation after months of struggle with the dollar, Euro, the Pound and other currencies.

A recent currency performance ranking by Bloomberg classified the Cedi as the worst-performing currency across the globe after Sri Lanka’s Rupee.

Bloomberg tracked the performance of 150 currencies in the world and the Cedi placed last but one in terms of performance since the beginning of the year.

In less than 8 months, the Cedi has come under intense exchange rate pressure.

But after going down GHC10.3 to the dollar, it started off today on a strong footing crawling back to GHC9.

Minister of State at the Finance Ministry, Charles Adu Boahen attributes the appreciation to the availability of the 750 million dollar Afrexim loan.

To sustain the cedi, Dr. Boakye proposed that government should stop the drain through foreign investors repatriating their profit.”

He added that “if there is improvement in the fiscal operation that will help.”

Dr. Boakye noted that if the fiscal authorities are not able to put their house in order, the cedi might further depreciate, noting however, “that it is good news that we have had a breathing space now.”