The International Monetary Fund (IMF) supported the Bank of Ghana’s financing of the government in 2022 as a crisis management tool to help keep government machinery running and the economy together, the central bank has said.
BoG said in a release issued today, Thursday that while the IMF and the central bank saw the lending to be “suboptimal,” “it was agreed that this temporary arrangement was needed.”
Consequently, it said in the statement responding to public commentary on BoG’s financing of the government in 2022 that it was inaccurate that the IMF came and uncovered the extent of the deficit financing.
Instead, it said the IMF team assessed it to be necessary but part of a comprehensive solution to be addressed in the government’s economic policies and programmes to be supported by the IMF.
The statement is signed by the Secretary of BoG, Ms Sandra Thompson.
BoG also explained that the crisis that the country found itself in last year meant that the central bank lending was critical “to avert a disorderly default of both servicing for domestic and external debt.”
It noted that the funding helped to finance critical imports to keep the economy on the stable path.
The bank said it was compelled to re-state its earlier assessments on the matter and address misinformation and inaccuracies while helping to anchor the discussions in the public domain.
Below is the full statement