On Friday, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo asked Germany to “push” China, an ad hoc Paris Club member, to help Ghana restructure its debt.
He said the Paris Club must quickly form a creditors committee with other government creditors to help Ghana regain economic development.
When German Finance Minister Christian Lindner visited him at Jubilee House, Accra, the President called.
Linden, who led a group from his country, met with the President to improve relations and trade.
President Akufo-Addo reminded the minister that his government’s top priority was to finalize discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), notably at the Board level, and reach a Bretton Woods agreement by mid-March.
“Our main concern right now is the arrangements that we are in the process of concluding with the IMF…and the specific assistance that will be useful to us and help us fast-track the process.
“Our target is that by the middle of March, we should be before the Board for the full agreement. We have already taken one important step forward in concluding a staff-level agreement with the IMF and we are now looking to go the full haul in concluding the agreement. We are hoping that it will be done by the middle of March.
“One of the steps towards that has been the domestic debt exchange programme that we are on, which fortunately, we have quite a lot of difficulties, has now been virtually concluded,” he stated.
President Akufo-Addo highlighted that other creditors needed to assist his government’s efforts to restructure both foreign and domestic loans to make the IMF agreement happen fast.
“We now have our relations with the Paris club and the common framework, and we are looking for as quickly as possible a creditor committee to be established, so we will have the body with whom we can engage to bring those discussions as quickly as possible.
“We have good relations with China. We will like you to encourage China to participate in these programmes as quickly as possible…A very important consideration for us is the financial stability fund that has been promised us as one of the key outcomes of these negotiations and definitely once again, your voice in trying to bring that into being is something that we would appreciate very much,” President Akufo-Addo told Finance Minister Lindner.
As a reminder, Ghana received a $3 billion, three-year Extended Credit Facility from the IMF in December to reduce its debt. Ghana must fully restructure its internal and foreign debts to approve the deal.