Ghana making progress on loan negotiations - minister
Ghana’s Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has said that the country is making progress in renegotiating its debt repayments with foreign lenders.
Boakyewaa Lawrencia 
This is crucial for the May agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to work. The $3bn-bailout programme agreed was aimed at helping the troubled economy.
Ghana is to restructure its external debt before the first review of the IMF agreement later this year.
Addressing the media in Accra, Mr Ofori-Atta gave indications that the country was in the process of clinching a new deal with its lenders in the coming weeks.
The country is hoping to defer interest payments worth $10.5bn.
The minister said that the IMF programme had created a fertile ground for implementing other measures that would help revive the economy.
He added that Ghanaians should brace themselves for the needed reforms to make it a success.
“In fact, the real work of adjustment, realignment and the path to steady economic growth has just begun. Let us brace ourselves for the needed reform… in order to rebuild the walls of the republic with urgency,” Mr Ofori-Atta said.
Source: BBC
