APA – Accra (Ghana)
The warning by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Ghana will need austerity measures in the coming months to bring inflation back to the single digit territory is one of the trending stories in the Ghanaian press on Thursday.
The Graphic reports that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that Ghana will need austerity measures in the coming months to bring inflation back to the single digit territory.
The fund said the process could be long and painful, as sustained fiscal imbalances over the years had pushed inflation to higher levels.
Ghana’s inflation peaked at 54.1 per cent in December last year before easing to 45 per cent in March this year – the third consecutive fall.
The surging inflation, which started in 2019, has already led to a cumulative 1,600 basis points increase in the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) policy rate, spending cuts and more taxes.
To further bring it down to the central bank’s target band of between six per cent and 10 per cent, the Division Chief in the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF, Paulo Medas, said a combination of tight monetary and fiscal policies were required.
Mr Medas told the media in Washington D.C., in the United States of America (USA) Wednesday that efforts to tackle the current inflationary pressures must also aim to re-anchor expectations, given that they had drifted outside the disinflationary path.
Fiscal Monitor
Mr Medas was responding to a question on how Ghana and Nigeria can help tame their inflationary pressures at a time when monetary policy had proven inadequate in addressing the problem
He was addressing the media during the launch of the IMF’s Fiscal Monitor, a biannual report that provides an overview of latest public finance developments, updates the medium-term fiscal outlook, and assesses fiscal implications of policies relevant to the global economy.
The April 2023 edition was launched at the ongoing IMF/World Bank Group Spring Meetings in Washington D.C., where finance ministers, central bank governors and other key managers of economies across the globe have converged to find solutions to the teething economics challenges.
The newspaper says that former President John Dramani Mahama says any attempt by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) to rig the 2024 general elections would not be allowed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
“The NPP should not even think of rigging the elections because the NDC would mark them boot for boot,” he said.
According to him, the NDC grassroots had been well positioned to protect the ballot boxes very well.
Mr Mahama said this when he addressed party executives and delegates in the Abuakwa South, Abuakwa North, Fanteakwa South and Fanteakwa North constituencies in the Eastern Region as part of his three-day campaign tour of the Eastern Region.
Mr Mahama, who is seeking the mandate of NDC delegates to lead the party in the 2024 presidential election, was accompanied by some stalwarts of the party on his tour of the constituencies.
They included Professor Joshua Alabi; Former Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah and the immediate past National Chairman of the NDC, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo.
Mr Mahama stated that the NDC had already prepared mentally, physically and psychologically to police the ballot boxes very well.
The Graphic also reports that the government has declared its unflinching support to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to meet its financial obligations to power generators, including independent power producers (IPPs) for sustainable power supply in the country.
A Deputy Minister of Energy, Herbert Krapah, who gave the assurance in an interview with journalists on the margins of the launch of the 10th anniversary of the Electrical Wiring Programme (EWP) by the Energy Commission in Accra yesterday, said the current focus was to support the company to retrieve its tariff arrears of over GH¢5.7 billion owed by power consumers.
“The first step is to help ECG recoup what is out there.
That is one of the ways to help the company defray some of the debts and make it sustainable.
We have a mechanism to ensure that what is received is distributed fairly and equitable to all the players including the private entities,” he stated.
Full backing
Mr Krapa said the current revenue mobilisation drive by ECG was a step in the right direction as it would make the public utility company more resourceful to enable it to meet its commitments.
“The revenue mobilisation drive by ECG has the full support of the government.
Before ECG rolled out the programme, the minister of energy, his deputies and the leadership of the Ministry met with ECG and finalised the modalities for implementation.
The ECG has the fullest backing of the government,” he added.
He said it was important that ECG sustained the revenue mobilisation drive, adding that “this must not be a nine-day wonder.”
The DailyGuide says that inflation has fallen significantly to 45.0 percent for the month of March 2023.
The figure represents a 7.8 percentage point decrease over 52.8 percent recorded in February 2023.
This was captured in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on Wednesday April 12, 2023.
According to the data, food inflation also stood at 50.8 percent and Non- food inflation at 40.6 percent.
Commenting on the drop of inflation, the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, said from the regional level, the Western North recorded the highest inflation with 67.3 percent, while the Volta region recorded the least inflation at 25.6 percent.
GIK/APA