With the advice, “Do not give excuses, but put your house in order,” the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged Ghana and its neighboring African nations to strengthen economic foundations.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva suggested lowering tax evasion, increasing domestic revenue, removing trade barriers, and tackling corruption and conflicts during a press briefing on the Fund’s Global Policy Agenda for 2025 in Washington, D.C.
“The African continent is having some of the fastest growing economies, [but] there is still a lot that can be done,” she said, emphasizing the need for deeper collaborations.
“Africa has so much to offer the world; obviously they have the minerals, the natural resources, [and] the young population. A more unified, more collaborative continent can go a long way to be an economic powerhouse,” she added.
While the majority of African countries would not be directly impacted by the present trade tariff shocks, Georgieva pointed out that the indirect consequences would be “quite significant.”
“Different countries face different challenges [but] some basic recommendations that apply to Africa apply to Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire,” Georgieva stated.
Building financial buffers for economic shocks, expanding the tax base through technology, and tackling infrastructural issues to boost trade and growth are some of the options she listed.
Georgieva emphasized the necessity of internal evaluation and focused inflation control measures in her remarks on monetary policy.
“But above all, make it so that the image of the whole continent changes, because now everybody suffers from wrongdoing, from corruption or from conflict in one country, it draws a shadow on the rest of the continent,” she said.
Source: newsthemegh.com