IMF to soon release $360M cash as Gov’t reaches MOU with its official Creditor C’ttee
The Government of the Republic of Ghana has reached an agreement on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with its Official Creditor Committee (OCC) regarding the debt treatment agreed upon in January 2024.
Ghana’s OCC is co-chaired by China and France, both of which played important roles in this achievement.
The MoU formalises the agreement in principle reached with Official Creditors in January and marks a crucial step towards Ghana restoring long-term debt sustainability.
The financial terms of the agreement remain unchanged and it provides significant debt service relief during the Fund-supported program period. allowing financial resources to be directed towards critical areas such as infrastructure healthcare and education.
The formalisation of the OCC agreement is expected to pave the way for the approval by the IMF Executive Board of the second review of the Fund-supported Post Covid-19 Programme for Economic Growth (PC-PEG), allowing the next tranche of IMF financing of USS360million to be disbursed.
The IMF Board’s approval should also trigger more financial assistance from our development partners, particularly the World Bank. The agreement will also bolster the current and ongoing discussions with private creditors, with whom Ghana remains committed to finding a comparable agreement as early as possible.
A statement issued by the Ministry of Finance explained that “each official creditor will now follow its internal procedures to sign the MoU. Once signed, the agreed terms will be implemented through bilateral agreements with each OCC member We call upon our official creditors to fast-track their internal processes towards the signing of the bilateral agreements.
“Ghana continues to engage in good faith with all commercial external creditors, striving to finalise restructuring agreements that respect Ghana’s need for debt relief and the comparability of treatment principle. Ghana also reiterates its firm commitment to remain in arrears with its external commercial creditors until agreements compatible with the comparability of treatment principle are reached.”
The Minister for Finance, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam M P, said “The Ministry of Finance on behalf of the Republic of Ghana extends our gratitude to all members of the OCC. particularly the committee’s co-chairs. China and France, for their unwavering commitment to assisting our country in resolving its debt issues. This landmark agreement marks an extraordinary milestone in Ghana’s debt restructuring Journey and will further strengthen our ambitious reform agenda with the strong support of our development partners.”
