How IMF capped forex intervention to $80m a month, lifted restriction in 2025 after reserves accumulated – Bawumia reveals

Former Vice President and NPP 2028 Presidential Candidate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has disclosed a “hidden” conditionality under Ghana’s IMF programme that he says constrained the foreign exchange market and contributed to the rapid depreciation of the cedi between 2022 and 2024. Speaking on Thursday during a meeting with members of the Ghana Small-Scale Miners Association in Accra, Dr Bawumia said the IMF had capped the Bank of Ghana’s market support to a maximum of $80 million a month. “One of the restrictions for the IMF programme that we engaged in was the amount of foreign exchange that the central bank could use to intervene to support the cedi.

We were given a maximum of $80 million a month,” he told the small-scale miners. He was highlighting the positive impact of the Gold for Reserves programme, which he said he proposed amid the economic crisis and the restrictions imposed under the IMF programme. That meant the Bank of Ghana could use a maximum of $960 million in a whole year to support the foreign exchange market — an amount Dr Bawumia said was far below Ghana’s monthly demand for dollars to pay for fuel, machinery, medicine and other imports.

And at the same time, the cedi was depreciating almost on a daily basis.” He explained that the restriction was part of the IMF’s reserve accumulation strategy but had the side effect of creating scarcity in the foreign exchange market. The former Vice President said the restriction was lifted in January 2025 after sufficient foreign exchange reserves had been accumulated through the Gold for Reserves programme, which he said he had proposed to the Bank of Ghana. “Because we had built up the foreign exchange reserves through Gold-for-Reserves, that restriction was removed.

And since then, the Bank of Ghana has been able to put in at least $1 billion a month in the market. From $80 million maximum per month ($960 million per year) to $1 billion a month! We couldn’t even do $1 billion a year before.” Dr Bawumia said the increased availability of foreign exchange had helped lay the foundation for the current stability of the cedi.

The New Patriotic Party’s 2028 flagbearer, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has explained in detail what drove him to introduce the Gold-for-Oil and Domestic Gold Purchase programmes. Speaking in Accra to members of the Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Miners, the former Vice President said two interlinked problems forced him, while serving as Vice President, to “think outside the box” for sustainable solutions. The first, he said, was the sudden halt in external financing following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war on the global economy.

“That tap (external financing) was shut for Ghana and quite a few countries. And for us, it resulted in a balance of payments crisis.” The second problem, he said, was the conditions attached to Ghana’s IMF programme. While Ghana was under an IMF programme aimed at restoring confidence in the economy, Dr Bawumia said one of the conditions was that the Bank of Ghana could use only $80 million a month to intervene in the foreign exchange market.