Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison, has expressed optimism that Ghana’s high inflation would witness a sharp decline this year
He said projections made show that inflation will go a downward path to 29 per cent from the 41.2% recorded in April 2023.
Dr Ernest Addision attributed the taming of the high inflation to the disbursement of the first tranche of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to salvage Ghana’s economic crisis.
Speaking at the Ghana Investment and Opportunities Summit in the United Kingdom and monitored by GhanaWeb Business, the Central Bank Governor said, “We have reached a point where one can say that the vicious cycle is behind us. We’ve reached the board level approvement, we have received the first disbursement, we have a little bit foreign exchange than we had last year, and from the base period effect alone, one should expect inflation to fall very sharply in 2023.”
“Our projections are looking around 29, I think we might even do better than that, probably come out at 25…we should see inflation on a downward path in 2023,” he added.
It would be recalled that the government on July 1, 2022, announced its decision to engage 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.
In the same month, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, announced that the first $600 million tranche of the $3 billion loan facility was received.
The IMF programme, according to the government is aimed at restoring macroeconomic stability and safeguarding debt sustainability among many others.
