Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, says while the government may be embarking on a three year programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it intends on completing the programme in two years.

According to him, he is certain Ghana would be able to effectively complete this programme in record time, achieving all laid down targets.

“We’re thinking of, maybe, a three year programme, but you remember we inherited one in 2017 in which we were out of that in two and third years in April 2019. We expect to do this as effectively also,” he said on JoyNews’ PM Express Business Edition.

His statement comes on the back of claims by policy analysts that a large chunk of the country’s fiscal problem stems from the government’s failure to complete the IMF’s structural policies in the last IMF programme it exited.

According to Policy Analyst, Bright Simons, the government had failed to meet certain structural benchmarks which were required to complete the programme in 2019 and instead had opted for waivers, assuring the IMF that it would meet those benchmarks outside of the programme, independently.

Unfortunately, all but two of the structural benchmarks were not met, Bright Simons said.

However, the Finance Minister is optimistic this programme will also be completed in two years.

“Three year programme possibly but knowing that within two years we must have achieved most of what we intend to,” he said.

Ken Ofori-Atta further stated that taking into consideration Ghana’s GDP growth over the years, he was hopeful the country would receive a facility between two to three billion over the period Ghana is subscribed to the IMF.

“Well you don’t know, I mean the assessment still goes on, the last time we had about a billion dollars for the three year programme. I think our GDP is now gone up to about 591 billion so that may enhance our quota a bit. And we look forward to anything, maybe, two, three or so billion over the period and then get back to the market and also friendly sovereigns for the balance,” he said.