The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Mission Chief for Ghana, Stéphane Roudet is confident that Ghana will formalise a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the bilateral creditors on the country’s debt restructuring programme in the coming weeks.

He disclosed that some good progress has been made in drafting an agreement with the official creditors.

“We are confident that this will happen in the next few weeks in terms of formalising what happened in January this year for us to take it to the board in June. We are now more confident, that we will be able to go to the IMF board on Ghana’s programme”, he assured.

Mr. Roudet was speaking to journalists in Washington DC USA, on the sidelines of the Annual IMF /World Bank spring meetings.
Stressing on the June timeline, he stated that all team members are working to make the time.

“It takes quite some time to put together the report and circulate it with the management and the board. We are hopeful that something will happen in June”, he restated.

Discussions with commercial creditors

On concerns about the current negotiations with commercial creditors delaying, Mr. Roudet noted that even though, it is not a major requirement, it is however important to make progress on the debt relief which must be consistent with the IMF programme.

“We also need good faith in place when it comes to the negotiations with the commercial creditors, and we are already seeing that. From that standpoint there is good faith when it comes to negotiations with the creditors”, he announced.

Fiscal discipline in an election year

On containing election spending before the elections, Mr. Roudet said the team is convinced by the government’s commitment to be fiscally disciplined.

“If you look at past elections, there have been fiscal slippages and therefore everyone should be concerned”, he added.

He pointed out that the IMF has observed some changes in the government’s fiscal commitment.

On high-interest rates, Mr. Roudet was hopeful the cost of credit would come down if inflation declines in line with the IMF programme.

“We believe that as inflation continues to go down, that could force the Bank of Ghana to also reduce interest rates”.  

He added that the government is also reducing the amount of money needed from the domestic market. This he alluded may be contributing to reducing the interest rates.