The Director of Business Operations at Dalex Finance, Joe Jackson, says it’s a bad signal for Ghana’s reserves to be almost empty.
According to the 2023 International Monetary Fund Regional Economic Outlook Report (Sub-Saharan Africa), Ghana’s net international reserves are expected to end in 2023 at approximately three weeks of import cover (0.8 months).
Only Zimbabwe (0.2 months), South Sudan (0.5 months), and Ethiopia (0.6 months) in Sub-Saharan Africa are projected to have lower import cover than Ghana.
Commenting on the issue on Eyewitness News with Umaru Sanda Amadu, Joe Jackson underscored, “We will have no import cover at all at the end of the year. It’s not a good sign at all, it shows how severe the economic crisis that we are facing is. It’s been coming for a long time. I tweeted to alert the public that the situation is getting dire”.
The Director of Business Operations at Dalex Finance said the country’s economy will totally be out of gear if government fails to secure the IMF bailout in May.
“At this moment I cannot fathom what will happen if we don’t secure the IMF deal,” he stated.
Mr. Jackson appealed to the labour unions and other stakeholders kicking against the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme to come on board to help the government secure the deal.
“We have to come to the table, we have to do everything required to get the deal, otherwise we will face massive shortages of foreign currencies. We will be facing Dumsor because we cannot import fuel. There will be fuel shortages, we won’t be able to import drugs, tomatoes, or chicken. This is a cry to the labour front, pensioners and all the other stakeholders who have a role to play in making sure we get the IMF deal by the end of May”.
“Let’s get to the table and realise how dire the situation is. Those kicking against the DDEP should come on board. We are between a rock and an extremely hard place. As much as we say this is not fair, the country needs their funds. The sad thing is that somebody has to pay. We have got to come together as a nation to resolve this issue,” the Director of Business Operations at Dalex Finance admonished.
He advised the government to cut down on its appointees and expenditures by way of showing leadership.
Mr. Jackson further suggested to the government to open up on the economic situation the country is faced with to the pensioners in order to gain their trust.
“The government must show leadership by cutting down its expenditure, cut down on the size of appointees, reduce the size of borrowing for this year’s budget so that it can have some authority in speaking to the pensioners and other stakeholders and say this is where we are and this is what we have to do to stay off disaster. Let us all remember that we are in a crisis, and we have got to keep praying for sensible heads to prevail,” he suggested.
