IMF, World Bank to Ghana's Rescue

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank will soon release some programme loans as a means of shoring up Ghana's unstable foreign exchange situation.

The release of the funds, according to Mr. Moses Asaga, Deputy Minister of Finance, will be through a 'fast-track' approach. He was speaking to a group of economic experts from the Center for Policy Analysis (CEPA), private sector operators, investment analysts, and researchers after the presentation of its Macroeconomic Review and Outlook for 2000 in Accra.

"We have to rely on direct injection of foreign currency into the market through the liberalization of the capital account and fast-track release and disbursement of official programme. He expressed the hope that something more concrete, in terms of the level of support and when it will be disbursed, would be known at the close of the Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington.

Mr. Asaga said in the short term, the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana are working out ways of intervening in the operations of the Foreign Exchange Market through a "modification" of forces of supply and demand because the traditional approach of raising interest rates would not work. He ruled out the raising of interest rates because exchange control laws limit foreign investment in the bond or Treasury bill market.