Ghana will be unable to secure IMF board approval by end of March – Poll

Some Ghanaians believe Ghana may not be able to secure board approval from the International Monetary Fund by the end of March.

A GhanaWeb Business poll has revealed that out of about 3,000 respondents, 2,093, representing 73.39%, are pessimistic about securing the deal by the end of March.

The rest, 15.01%, said yes, whiles 11.61% were indifferent about whether or not the deal would go through.

In January this year, the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, said that he is confident that Ghana will get the approval of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) board for the $3 billion bailout it is seeking in March 2023.

According to him, the government hopes to prove to the IMF board that its debt is sustainable by finalising its move to join the Paris Club and its Domestic Debt Exchange Programme.

“I’m confident that we’ll get it (approval of the bailout by IMF board). But as I mentioned earlier, we have a deadline of the end of February for the Paris Club, and so we need to be able to do that. And in between that, we would have completed our Domestic Debt Exchange Programme,” he said.

But even though the debt exchange programme, which was one of the requirements for getting the board’s approval, had been completed, Ghana is still yet to finalise talks with its external creditors.



SSD/FNOQ