After months of negotiations for a $3 billion rescue, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Ghana are anticipated to announce a staff-level agreement on a loan arrangement today, Tuesday, December 13.
The two parties will announce the deal during a joint press conference on Tuesday morning.
This will open the door for the Fund Board to think about and potentially adopt a programme for the nation.
As the economy struggles through its worst crisis in twenty years, Ghana turned to the IMF in July for a $3 billion three-year bailout.
The country in West Africa that produces cocoa, gold, and oil has stated that it needs the agreement before the end of the year.
The government has started reorganising its debt by introducing a plan to replace $10.5 billion in local bonds with new ones. However, both organised labour and the general public have reacted angrily to this action.
The Ghanaian Cedi, meanwhile, was listed as the world’s best-performing currency last week.
This brief upswing in the economy is attributable to Ghana’s plan to restructure its domestic debt.
According to this Bloomberg report, there is anticipation that the country will receive the $3 billion bailout it has been demanding from the International Monetary Fund for months along with the increase in currency value.
The report reads in part; “The cedi has rallied 10% in the past five days, the biggest advance among about 150 currencies tracked by Bloomberg. That’s a turnaround for an exchange rate that had lost half of its value this year and occupied the bottom slot in the charts.”
More extracts from the report read, “The currency was the cheapest in Africa, more than 30% undervalued versus its 25-year history last week, so some rebound after the huge fall recently isn’t that surprising,” said Charles Robertson, the global chief economist at Renaissance Capital Ltd. in London. Also we have the IMF in town, which should pave the way for dollar support.”
