Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, says Ghana may have to wait some three or more years before going back to the international capital market.
According to him, while the country hopefully gets onto an IMF programme, Ghana’s temporary obstruction from the international capital market poses an opportunity for the country to finally pursue earnestly its self-sufficiency agenda.
Speaking to JoyBusiness’ George Wiafe on the sideline of the IMF spring meeting in Washington DC, the minister said, “In terms of returning to the international capital market, I suspect it will take some two-three years or so if not more for us to get back to it. I think in the interim we should be able to generate local resources to do that.
“But I think what is also significant about the programme if you look at the Ghana Cares programme it is our policy to be self-sufficient in poultry, rice, tomatoes etc. which we’ve begun to do so that will reduce your foreign exchange demands and actually hopefully begin to export those products.”
Meanwhile, Ghana has received massive assurances of support from the international community concerning the country’s IMF bailout bid.
Speaking on that, the minister noted that he was pleased with the show of support, and added that it was all testament to the hard work the country has put in to ensure that it got the IMF deal as soon as possible.
“We have worked hard as a country to get here and we have stick to it through the difficult times as you know, especially through the debt exchange programme and I think the world recognizes that we are prepared to take responsibility and share in the burden of what we have to do. But still, clearly, I believe God’s favour is on the country and it’s really up to us to work hard so that we can get through this programme,” he said.