Business News of Tuesday, 24 August 2021
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
2021-08-24
The Bank of Ghana Headquaters
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has transferred a little over US$1 billion into the Bank of Ghana’s account as part of a Special Drawing Right (SDR) allocation to support economic recovery.
This came to light when the Fund issued a circular showing Ghana was the 4th country to receive the largest disbursement followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and South Africa which received over US$4 billion from the IMF.
According to Ghana’s Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, Government will withdraw the entire US$1 billion made available to support key areas of the economy in a bid to fast-track growth.
He added that government is also considering directing some of the funds towards its ambitious Ghana CARES programme.
The SDR allocation was first introduced for all countries as part of an emergency response programme to the global recession following the Great Depression era.
The IMF allows for countries to access the emergency financing disbursement under the Rapid Credit Facility.
The recent disbursement for Ghana was approved by the IMF 18 months ago as part of measures in fighting the Coronavirus pandemic.
See the circular below:
Here is the US$ value (as of Aug 23) of #SDR select African economies received as part of the new allocation. #IMFAfrica
Angola ???????? – $1.0B
CIV ???????? – $884M
Ghana ???????? – $1.0B
Kenya ???????? – $738M
Nigeria ???????? – $3.3B
Senegal ???????? – $440M
South Africa ???????? – $4.1Bhttps://t.co/XPelfW1Ndz pic.twitter.com/7oI6MYBvcm— IMF Africa (@IMFAfrica) August 23, 2021