The Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has held a bilateral meeting with the German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Ms Svenja Schulze on Wednesday in Accra.
The meeting was to deepen Ghana-German relations as well as to discuss the role of the KfW Development Bank in supporting Ghana in its post-debt restructuring to ensure economic stability and sustainable growth.
Mr Ofori-Atta informed the visiting Minister that Ghana had successfully reached Staff-Level Agreement (SLA) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“The SLA is on economic policies and reforms to be supported by a new three-year arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) of about US$3 billion in December 2022,” he added.
He indicated that the parties had agreed on structural reform benchmarks, prior actions, performance criteria on key macro-fiscal indicators and the finalization of the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP).
He stated that the success of the country’s debt restructuring programme, which would require external support from countries like Germany, was critical for Ghana’s programme to be considered by the IMF Executive Board.
He noted that all prior requirements had been met and that the government was optimistic that it would get an IMF Board approval in March or April.
On her part, the German Federal Minister, Ms Svenja Schulze assured the Finance Minister that Germany was ready to engage other development partners yet to sign on to the creditors’ committee during the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting scheduled to take place at the end of the month.
The KfW team, which was part of the German delegation, also stated that it was ready to partner with the Development Bank Ghana, to be an advocate for setting up a creditors committee and the Ghana Stabilization Fund.
The two countries also discussed structural changes in the energy sector and ways to make it more sustainable to support the economy as well as improve regional security to augment cross-border trade.
Patience Anaadem, ISD
