Negotiations with Ghana’s external creditors fruitful, says Oppong Nkrumah

A Ghanaian delegation led by the Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has been meeting the country’s external creditors to push for them to immediately provide debt relief for Ghana to enable it access the second tranche of the US$3 billion IMF support.

The meetings are being held at the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Marrakech, Morocco.

The government and the IMF reached a staff-level agreement last week, which will pave the way for the IMF executive board to review Ghana’s programme. An approval from the board will automatically make way for Ghana to access the second tranche of US$600 million of the US$3 billion given by the fund to support the country’s economic recovery programme.

“We’ve been doing our side meetings with external creditors in line with our programmes with the fund. Generally, the meetings are going smoothly,” Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, told Nana Oye Ankrah of Asaase 99.5 Accra.

Ghana owes external creditors a total of US$29.9 billion, representing 41% of the country’s total debt, which has to be be restructured.

“We are exchanging and validating data and the possible contours of the external debt programme, and we are hopeful that it will end well,” said Oppong Nkrumah.

Meanwhile, the IMF has expressed optimism that the creditors will give Ghana favourable debt reliefs.