Banking Consultant, Dr Richmond Atuahene, has said Ghana's economy will take a long time to bounce back to normal levels.
Making this known on GhanaWeb TV's BizTech programme, he stated categorically that the economy will take between 5 to 7 years to recover.
Dr Atuahene noted that until the country's cost-push inflation is tamed, the local economy will continue to be in a wobbling state.
"The economy is not going to turn around today or tomorrow. It will take quite a reasonable time and if I am a prophet, I'll tell you it will take 5 to 7 years," the banking consultant told the host of BizTech.
He added that, "If we want to achieve A+- when we are importing everything, poultry feed, rice, sugar, even dead bodies, how can you control it. Because our cost-push inflation, the policy rate they are looking at demand push. The cost push is something that is coming from external."
It would be recalled that the local economy took a nosedive in 2020 after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
It remained in a wobbling state for quite some time before the Russia-Ukraine war aggravated the case.
As part of measures to tame high inflation and stabilize the economy, the government on July 1, 2022, announced its decision to run to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $3 billion financial bailout programme.
Subsequently, a team from the IMF arrived in the country from July 6 to July 13, 2022, to engage Ghanaian authorities for a possible economic support programme.
A staff-level agreement between the Government of Ghana and the IMF was reached in December 2022.
On May 17, 2023, IMF's executive board approved Ghana's $3 billion loan facility.
The first tranche of $600million was received by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) on Friday, May 19, 2023.
The IMF programme, according to the government is aimed at restoring macroeconomic stability and safeguarding debt sustainability among many others
SA/MA
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