The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has reiterated the government’s decision not to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), despite Ghana’s current economic challenges. He said the government is confident in its homegrown solutions to getting the economy to recover. Speaking at the Minister’s Press Briefing in Accra, he said the government will keep introducing more measures to raise revenue domestically to sustain the economy.
He however said Ghana continues to enjoy the technical support and advice received from the IMF. “We are members of the fund [IMF] and there are two major points of intervention that we have from the Fund. One is the advice that we get and these programme interventions which bring us some resources. If you see from the budget that we constructed for 2022 and the subsequent announces we’ve done, clearly the issue of Ghana having the capacity to think through the consolidation exercises and also disciplining itself with regard to the 20% to 30% [expenditure] cut that we have shown clearly is a direction that I guess even in a sense, the fund may be hesitant to push any further,” he said.
The minister further said the government is optimistic monies accrued from the implementation of the E-levy will help fix the current budget deficit. “I am confident that E-levy opens a new vista for a tax handle in a way which all Ghanaians will be paying something. I don’t know of any program which has technology involved that will not have teething problems, but certainly, the cataclysmic pronouncements by the people from the other side are not happening,” he added.
