Gov’t Shared Different Macroeconomic Data with IMF and Ghanaians?

Heated debates have ensued following the approval for the disbursement of US$ 1Billion credit facility to the Government of Ghana by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on April 13, 2020.

Critics have questioned disparities in Data presented to the IMF by Ghana’s Ministry of Finance in request for the money said to be used for addressing the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the country.

According to critics, the data contained in the IMF’s report on the macro-economic situation of Ghana differs from what was presented by the finance ministry to the country through budget statements.

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The data from the IMF is reportedly sourced from ‘Authorities of Ghana’ and ‘Staff of the Fund’.
Following the public debate, factcheck-ghana.com has crosschecked the data submitted to the IMF by the authorities and what has been previously shared with Ghanaians and published by the Ministry of Finance. Based on the figures, we conclude that indeed, the data presented by the government to the IMF are different from those in budget statements.

The fact-checking team found disparities between the data published in the statement of the IMF and data from the Budget Statements of 2019 and 2020 that the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori Atta, presented to Parliament. The disparities are mainly with the following 2018 and 2019 indicators:

GDP Deficit (Fiscal Deficit of GDP)

Primary Balance

Current Account Balance

Gross International Reserves

Below is a table comparing the data on the above-mentioned indicators which are contained in page 24, paragraph 100, of the 2019 Budget Statement and page 18, point 71, of the 2020 Budget Statement against the data from the IMF statement (contained in page 3).

Source: Budget Statement of Ghana (2019, 2020) & IMF Statement (2020)