Story: Franklin ASARE-DONKOH
The World Bank (WB) Country Director (Ghana), Mr. Pierre Frank Laporte, has hinted that he is optimistic Ghana is likely to bag about 600 million dollars as the balance of payment support for the 2023 budget if the government is able to meet all the criteria the bank is demanding.
The WB Country Director made this known in an interview on TV3.
When asked if Ghana is able to meet all the criteria and is going to get budget support from the World Bank, and how much the country is likely to get, Mr. Laporte had this to say: “Normally, there is a hard rule and a soft rule. We can give around 30 to 40 percent of the country’s budget support and for Ghana, we are looking around $600 million. Ghana’s envelope for the next three years is $1.5 billion.”
Mr. Laporte further urged handlers of the Ghanaian economy to quicken to get a programme under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to deal with the economic challenges.
According to him, the country will find it tough to deal with its domestic challenges without support.
“There is an urgency, Ghana needs to tackle these problems with urgency. What is happening in the few months is that inflation has gone up, partly because of what is happening upside but also partly because the currency has depreciated,” he said.
Mr. Laporte added, “from where I sit, if nothing happens it will be very difficult for Ghana to find another way out. Domestic debt structuring is very difficult. Why? Because typically banks will invest in government papers, bonds and when you ask banks to care of kinds of stuff like that it affects the capital adequacy and it pits at risk these banks whereby international debt is easier to reschedule or restructure.”
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