12 Jul 2010
The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has approved the sixth and final review of the Sierra Leone performance under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement of $45.4 million. This was disclosed at a press briefing organized at the Bank of Sierra Leone conference hall in Freetown on Thursday 8th July 2010.
IMF President Hugo Chavez
IMF Resident Representative in Sierra Leone, Mr. Meshack Tuness Tjrongbo told journalists that the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) supported programme, (May 2006 to June 2010) is to strengthen long term basis for poverty reduction and development by maintaining macro-economic stability and improving public services.
Mr. Tuness Tjrongbo enlightened that on the micro-economic front, growth remains robust as GDP growth averaged 6.4 percent during 2006-2009 adding that inflation reduced to single digit in 2009. Domestic revenue performance, according to the IMF Representative, improved and international reserves increased pointing out that the ECF programme implementation as at December 2009 was satisfactory as demonstrated by the observance of all quantitative performance criteria.
He went on, “despite economic growth in recent years, per capita income remains low, poverty is pervasive with 60 percent of the population below the poverty line, the reason why Sierra Leone is ranked at the bottom of the UN Human Development Index.”
Tuness Tjrongbo further disclosed that Gross Domestic Investment is currently at about 15 percent of GDP, significantly lower than the Sub-Saharan African average of 22 percent revealing that private sector development is constrained by limited access to financial services.
He reiterated that the new ECF supported programme is for three-years and designed to create fiscal space to improve basic infrastructure and social services while maintaining macro-economic stability, strengthen tax performance, improve private finance management and deepen the financial sector to promote private sector led-growth as articulated in the Agenda for Change.
“The new micro-economic program, among other objectives, are to raise GDP growth to 6 percent by 2012, increase domestic revenue to at least 13.5 percent of GDP by 2012 and reduce inflation by 8 percent by the end of 2012,” he asserted and stressed that in relation to structural measures, government is committed to stepping up the implementation of structural reforms to complement the scaling-up of public investment, noting that the reforms would focus on improving tax administration, strengthen private finance management as well as the financial sector.