Ghana To Update 2015 Budget After Negotiations With IMF

The 2015 budget of the government of Ghana presented to parliament Wednesday will be updated following conclusion of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Ghanaian Minister of Finance Seth Terkper said here Friday.
Talks with the IMF were still going on and would conclude soon, Terkper said.
The IMF team which has been holding discussions with the Ghanaian authorities over a financial support program has endorsed the government's budget issued Wednesday.
The team said, if pursued diligently, the measures introduced in the 2015 budget would help restore macro-economic stability of the West African country.
The IMF team also welcomed projected arrears repayments of 1.2 percent of the GDP next year, which will bring the cash deficit down to the equivalent of 6.5 percent of the GDP in 2015, down from 9.5 percent in 2014.
It noted that the budget included some important measures to increase revenues, eliminate distortive and inefficient energy subsidies, and contain growth in Ghana's comparatively high public wage bill.
"Taken together, these fiscal measures, combined with sound debt management and actions to further boost the effectiveness of the Bank of Ghana's inflation targeting framework, should help restore macroeconomic stability," the statement said.
The team pledged its readiness to continue to support the authorities in Ghana in the coming weeks in such areas as cleaning up the payroll, finalizing the remaining details of their medium-term reforms and seeking external financing assurances from foreign donors and international institutions.
In August, the government of Ghana announced its decision to opt for an IMF support program to help stabilize its ailing economy.
The West African cocoa, gold and oil exporter has seen its local currency depreciate by some 30 percent this year, while inflation rose to 16.5 percent in September.
After receiving a formal request from the Ghanaian government, the IMF dispatched a team to Accra for preliminary talks in September, followed by another round of talks in Washington after the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank last month. (Cihan/Xinhua)