Government Not Desperate For IMF Financial Support – Prez Mahama

However, he said, if the discussion to be entered into with the Fund resulted in any money, the government would welcome it.

“If it comes with money, that is fine,” President Mahama said in an interview with Bloomberg TV Africa in Washington.

Explanation

In his first public comment on the IMF issue, the President explained that the support the government was seeking from the IMF centred on a discussion and a programme the government was looking at.

Ghana has decided to enter into discussions with the Bretton Woods Institution to support her home-grown economic recovery programme.

Some critics see the move as going for a bailout, but government ministers have persistently denied that.

Ghana is going through one of its most difficult economic times in its 57-year-old history, with the national currency plummeting about 40 per cent against the dollar this year.

Investor confidence

President Mahama expressed the hope that the IMF’s assistance would help build investor confidence in the country.

“If having a closer relationship with the IMF will give that confidence to our partners to be able to work together to achieve that, we are happy to do that,” he said.

President Mahama said the government was getting ready to sell $1.5 billion in Eurobonds by the end of August this year.

He said the decision to move the nation from a lower middle-income to a middle-income country was on course.

The IMF has, in a response to the government’s request, declared its readiness to help Ghana overcome its economic challenges.

A statement from the Fund said the institution would send a team to Ghana in early September to begin the discussion with the Ghanaian authorities.

Ghana is the second country in sub-Saharan Africa to move to the IMF for assistance this year.

The first was Zambia, which in June, this year, sought talks with the Fund.