President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has stressed that the government is determined to see to the conclusion of the IMF programme in the interest of the nation.
He said the programme was very critical and the country must persevere to go through it.
“We are determined to see the programme through to think that, that is what is in the national interest. What we are doing is helping to restore confidence in the markets,” he said.
Courtesy call
President Akufo-Addo said this when a team from Standard Chartered Bank paid a courtesy call on him at the Jubilee House in Accra.
He asked for the support of organisations such as the Standard Chartered Bank and said as the oldest bank in “you have a clearer understanding of what goes on here.”
President Akufo-Addo said “We want to accelerate the development of our economy and that will be made possible if we can find a way to finance the private sector in our country more purposely than it had been done in the past, especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana.
In that regard, he said, the government would be looking at banks like Standard Chartered and what it brought to the table.
Recounting the difficulties that confronted the country in the last three years, President Akufo-Addo said “with a lot of persistence and a lot of tenacity the country was beginning to get over the hump”
He said the very difficult decisions that was taken to tend to the fund to support our balance of payments was beginning to pay off.
He was happy that even though banks in the country took the brunt of the domestic debt exchange exercise, they stayed ahead of the curve and have now started making money.
Ups and downs
The President and Group Chairman of Standard Chartered Bank, Bill Winters, said Ghana like the rest of the world had had its ups and downs in these difficult times.
He, however, congratulated President Akufo-Addo “on the tremendous progress that you have made.”
“I know we are not completely through the difficult times but I trust that with the support of the local business community and the rest of the partners of Ghana, the country will continue to prosper and continue on the road to recovery,” Mr Winters added.