During her statement delivered on Sunday, March 26, 2023, the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, said that the US will send a legal resident adviser from the Treasury Department’s Office of Technical Assistance (OTA) to work with the Ministry of Finance on resolving economic issues.
The advisor is expected to come up with and carry out the medium-to-long-term changes that are needed to make debt more manageable and assist a competitive, active government debt market.
The United States claims that this endeavour will aid in the debt restructuring efforts of the Ghanaian government. This work is part of OTA’s larger effort to improve public finance management and financial sector supervision in sub-Saharan Africa.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said, “We welcome Ghana’s commitment to reform its economy for sustainable and inclusive growth. We support Ghana’s engagement with the IMF, and we will continue to push all bilateral creditors to provide meaningful debt reduction for countries that need it.
“It is critical to do so to build long-term economic growth and prosperity and to increase US investments. Our partnership is already strong, and I believe that today we have strengthened it”.
The Office of Technical Assistance will carry out 25 projects in 15 African countries in 2023. This including Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Namibia, Tanzania, the Gambia, and Zambia in the areas of revenue policy and administration, budget and financial accountability, government debt issuance and infrastructure financing, banking and financial services, and economic crimes.
USAID is paying for ten professionals to work in Ghana’s Ministry of Finance for two years as part of a fellowship programme. Their goal is to help the country better manage its debt. All of the fellows are intelligent, smart Ghanaians who have recently earned their degrees.
She also revealed that the United States government will invest over $100 million to aid in conflict prevention and stabilisation in coastal West Africa. This sum will include at least $86 million spread out over three years to help put the new 10-year plan into action.
Source – Tru News Report
