President John Dramani Mahama says Ghana’s programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) risked derailment when his government took office, forcing urgent corrective measures to restore agreed targets.
He made the remarks on Saturday during a citizens’ engagement on his “Resetting Ghana” tour in the Savannah Region, telling residents that key performance indicators under the programme had slipped before the change of government.
“All the agreed performance indicators were off track,” Mahama said, describing the programme as having been in danger of collapse at the point of transition.
The president said his administration introduced stringent measures in its first quarter to realign the programme with IMF requirements, an effort he credited with restoring stability.
He added that recent IMF review missions had assessed Ghana’s performance positively and that the final mission concluded last week. The programme now awaits approval from the IMF Executive Board for the release of a last tranche of $380 million.
Mahama tempered the news with caution, saying the economy still needed significant reform and that recovery remained a work in progress rather than cause for celebration.
Ghana secured a $3 billion IMF bailout in 2023 as it sought to stabilise an economy battered by a severe debt crisis, high inflation and a sharp fall in the value of the cedi.
The previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) government has rejected the derailment characterisation, arguing that the recent review vindicated the recovery programme it designed and negotiated in 2023.
