Dr. Abudu Abdul-Ganiyu, Technical Advisor to the Minister of Finance, urges the public to temper their expectations regarding the restart of stalled infrastructure projects, despite Ghana’s completion of its debt restructuring program successfully.
This advice comes after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Board approved the second review of Ghana’s post-COVID-19 Programme for Economic Growth (PC-PEG). The IMF statement highlighted Ghana’s overall strong performance under the program.
“All quantitative performance criteria for the second review and almost all indicative targets were met.
Good progress is being made on the debt restructuring, and key structural reforms are advancing,” the IMF statement read.
President Akufo-Addo previously linked the delay in completing infrastructure projects to the debt restructuring program, implying that their revival would align with the program’s success.
However, Dr. Abdul-Ganiyu, speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show with Bernard Avle, clarified that although the restructuring was successful in securing funds, the resumption of stalled projects is not guaranteed. He emphasized the necessity of prioritizing among these projects.
“We are talking about $250 million, but all of the projects that have been stalled and require some funding to be executed, even if it is year on year, will exceed the $250 million.
“What that means is that the cabinet and the Ministry of Finance should prioritise what are supposed to be the key projects that should be able to come under this particular financing.
So, that conversation would go on, my boss would lead that, and at the end of the year, we should be able to prioritise the key projects that, if you want, execution of these projects would have to resume in the course of this year, and going into next year, some more projects would have to resume as far as execution is concerned, all coming within the frame of $250 million.
“So, that is what we expect going forward, and as soon as that priority list has been completed, we should be able to identify the specific projects that execution would have to resume for the year.”
