The Minister of Finance, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam has stated that Ghana is expecting a total disbursement of about $1.2 billion from its Development Partners, namely the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank before the end of 2024, to further stabilise the cedi.

According to him, additional planned disbursements from ongoing projects will also support growth interventions and strengthen the currency.

Speaking at its first monthly press briefing by his outfit, he appealed to Parliament to approve the $150 million World Bank facility for the GARID project to enhance flood protection at the local level.

“To further stabilise the currency, we are expecting a total disbursement of about US$1.2 billion from our Development Partners namely the IMF, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank before the end of 2024. Additional planned disbursements from ongoing projects will also support our growth interventions and strengthen the currency. In this vein, we kindly request Parliament to approve the US$150 million World Bank facility for the GARID project to enhance flood protection at the local level”.

The cedi has come under immense pressure in the last couple of weeks losing about 6.8% in value to the dollar according to the Bank of Ghana.

The Central Bank attributed it to additionally payments made for energy and corporate sectors, compounded by the delays with the disbursement of the 2nd tranche of the cocoa loan and the World Bank loan. According to the Bank of Ghana, these pressures have been mitigated somewhat by the continued inflows from remittances and mining companies, and from the domestic gold purchase programme.

Ghana makes progress in external sector

Dr. Amin Adam also explained that the country continues to make progress in the external sector with improvements in both the current account balance and the trade balance. The current account recorded a surplus of $0.46 billion at the end of 2023 compared to a deficit of $1.52 billion at the end of December 2022.

Likewise, he said the trade balance ended 2023 at a surplus of $2.6 billion compared to a surplus of $2.9 billion at the end of 2022. The surplus trend continued in 2024 with a trade surplus of $392 million at the end of February 2024.

He continued that Gross International Reserves (GIR) including encumbered assets and petroleum funds stood at $5.9 billion (2.7 months of import cover) at the end of December 2023 from $6.3 billion (2.7 months import cover) at the end December 2022.

The GIR is supported by BoG’s Gold-for-Reserve Programme and the government’s Gold-for Oil Programme. In addition, external inflows from the IMF and World Bank as well as the Cocoa Syndicated Funds have helped shore up the GIR.

The IMF has so far disbursed $1.2 billion since May 2023 and the World Bank is disbursing $300 million following the recent parliamentary approval of the World Bank DPO.