ACCRA (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund's $918 million aid programme with Ghana is on track and the government has met almost all performance criteria, a senior Fund official said on Tuesday after an initial review mission.
The programme which began in April aims to stabilise an economy that grew strongly for years due to exports of gold, cocoa and oil but has seen a sharp slowdown since 2014 due to lower global commodity prices and a host of fiscal problems.
In particular, the government is wrestling to bring down inflation and a debt-to-GDP ratio that is close to 70 percent and a currency that has fallen around 22 percent since January.
"Our assessment is the programme is on track with all the measures and the developments according to plan," said Joel Toujas-Bernate, IMF's Africa Department Division Chief.
The review should lead to a disbursement of $115 million in August.
The IMF held its forecast for Ghana's 2015 GDP growth at 3.5 percent and said the West African country was on course to exceed its 2015 deficit reduction target with 7.2 percent expected versus 7.5 percent forecast previously.
The Fund forecast 2015 inflation at 13-14 percent, as against its previous target of 12.5 percent but said the country would likely meet its 2016 target of 8 percent.
Toujas-Bernate said he was surprised by the cedi currency's decline but said dollar inflows in coming months from a Eurobond, donors, the central bank, the African Development Bank and World Bank would help stabilise the cedi.
(Reporting by Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing by James Macharia)
