Economist tells govt to leverage on the ‘trillions of dollars of natural resource’ to grow the economy

Ghana does not need the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for economic growth, an economist Dr John Kwakye has said.

In the view of the Director of Research at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), Ghana can develop by relying on its natural resource wealth.

“We don’t need any SDRs to support our growth. We have trillions of dollars of natural resource wealth here at home. All we need to do is own it and not give it away to foreign companies,” he wrote on his X platform while reacting to a comment by an Economic Researcher, Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER), Dr Richmond Atta-Ankomah, who has urged government to leverage the SDR of the Fund for economic growth.

Dr Atta-Ankomah said the SDR was a less costly financing regime which offered lower interest rates than commercial loans for countries like Ghana.

“The current SDR interest rate is about 4 per cent, which was substantially cheaper than 7 to 11 per cent charged on Ghana’s Eurobond,” he added.

He encouraged government to appeal to the IMF to take into account the need for more funds to help Ghana channel liquidity and investment financing into well structured, sustainable, and inclusive developmental projects.

Mr Atta-Ankomah said a higher allocation of SDRs to Africa offered a unique opportunity to put the continent on track to meeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and build the Africa “we want.”

He said:“the money would not be a free money and would be paid back, therefore we must generate enough revenue from it to quantify our income.”

 

 

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