{"id":67323,"date":"2014-11-21T15:53:52","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T15:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=67323"},"modified":"2014-11-21T15:55:21","modified_gmt":"2014-11-21T15:55:21","slug":"imf-endorses-ghanas-2015-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=67323","title":{"rendered":"IMF endorses Ghana\u2019s 2015 budget"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has welcomed what it said are important measures Ghana has employed in the 2015 budget to reduce the fiscal deficit and properly manage government\u2019s finances among others.<\/p>\n<p>This was contained in a statement the IMF released on Friday after discussions on a financial assistance programme for Ghana.<\/p>\n<p>[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;snKf8DJwIVuq9tLoxq1xbZ8nIuaFTJfr&#8221;]The IMF said it particularly welcomes plans by government to reduce the budget deficit by about 3.5% of GDP.<\/p>\n<p>According to the IMF the 2015 budget includes some \u201cimportant measures to increase revenues, to eliminate distortive and inefficient energy subsidies, and to contain growth in Ghana\u2019s comparatively high public wage bill.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The last time the IMF was in Ghana over the bailout programme, it warned that the final bailout programme will target the elimination of fuel subsidies and structural reforms which will include pragmatic ways of increasing tax revenues for the country.<\/p>\n<p>Government has imposed a 17.5% tax Value Added Tax (VAT) on petroleum products even though it says this will only mean a 3% increase in petrol at the pump.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_66517\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-66517\" style=\"width: 675px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/parliament-2015-budget.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66517\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/parliament-2015-budget.jpg\" alt=\"Minority in Parliament\" width=\"675\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/parliament-2015-budget.jpg 675w, https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/parliament-2015-budget-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-66517\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Minority in Parliament<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The IMF team, led by Toujas-Bernat\u00e9 noted that efforts to clean up the government\u2019s payroll and enhance its management have been initiated and \u201cshould be pursued swiftly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Fund was optimistic that these efforts, together with the implementation of appropriate pay and hiring policies, \u201cwill help further control the wage bill, which has been a significant source of fiscal risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on the progress made so far with the bailout programme for Ghana, the IMF said it has \u201cmade significant progress in a third round of talks\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Fund added that it will \u201cwork with Ghana on a series of concrete steps in the coming weeks, including cleaning up the public sector payroll and finalising details of medium-term reforms, and will then agree an assistance programme.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>By: Nana Boakye-Yiadom\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has welcomed what it said are important measures Ghana has employed in the 2015 budget to reduce the fiscal deficit and properly manage government\u2019s finances among others. This was contained in a statement the IMF released on Friday after discussions on a financial assistance programme for Ghana. [contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;snKf8DJwIVuq9tLoxq1xbZ8nIuaFTJfr&#8221;]The IMF [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":66508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[43,38],"class_list":["post-67323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-foresight-medical-center","tag-palaver-newspaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/66508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}