Adnan Adams Mohammed
Against the norm, the finance minister has indicated that, government is not seeking additional budget support in a midyear review.
This comes as the new finance minister has assured Ghanaians of fiscal prudence despite electioneering year.
Presenting the midyear budget review to Parliament, last week, the minister assured that the government is operating within its budget, emphasizing efforts to control expenditures and stay within the 2024 Budget Appropriation.
“We are not seeking supplementary funds in this mid-year review. We are determined to be more efficient, strategic, and intentional to entrench fiscal consolidation and strongly promote growth”, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam declared government’s commitment fiscal responsibility.
Consequently, the minister noted that government had exceeded its midyear revenue target by 0.2 percent as of the end of June 2024 while highlighting several key financial milestones.
“In effect, Mr. Speaker, we are living within our means. Indeed, consistent with our programme with the IMF, we are on course to achieving a primary surplus of 0.5 percent of GDP by the end of the year.
“We have successfully concluded the second review of our Extended Credit Facility with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which led to the disbursement of the third tranche of 360 million US Dollars, bringing total disbursement to about USD1.6 billion.
“We have completed the Debt Restructuring programme with the Official Creditor Committee (OCC), covering USD5.1 billion dollars, resulting in approximately 2.8 billion US Dollars of debt relief. This means that we will not service our debt to our official creditors from 2023 to 2026.”
Dr. Amin Adam further announced the successful conclusion of negotiations with Eurobond holders, securing 13.1 billion US Dollars.
“This will lead to a cancellation of 4.7 billion US Dollars of our debt and provide debt service relief of 4.4 billion US Dollars between 2023 and 2026,” he explained.
He also highlighted savings from renegotiated Purchasing Power Agreements (PPAs) with Independent Power Producers, expected to save Ghana USD6.6 billion over the lifetime of the agreements.
“We have concluded negotiations with five of the seven Independent Power Producers, leading to substantial savings,” he said.
Dr. Amin Adam also revealed that the government has cleared all outstanding Bank Transfer Advice (BTAs) up to 2022 and is working diligently to address BTAs from 2023.
