Has IMF deal paid off? ‘Ghana will fully recover in 2026’ – Dr. Adu Sarkodie

Dr. Adu Owusu Sarkodie, senior lecturer and economist at the University of Ghana, has asserted that Ghana’s economy is likely to fully recover in the next two years after the completion of the ongoing IMF programme.

He said that although macroeconomic indicators are pointing in the right direction, the full recovery will occur when Ghana completes the ongoing International Monetary Fund (IMF) extended credit facility programme in 2026.

Reacting to President Akufo-Addo’s comments about the IMF deal having paid off on TV3’s Ghana Tonight programme, the economist said, “There have been some performance but I must say that we have not fully recovered, we are on a path to recovery,” adding, “the full recovery will come when we have completed the programme.”

This, he said, is because the $3 billion bailout loan is “being given to us in tranches; it is spread to us for three years”.

He added that “you do not expect to reap the full benefit of a programme whose financing is being given to you spread over three years. Even the IMF document itself has projected that Ghana will fully recover and go back to the pre-COVID levels in the year 2026”.

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Dr. Adu Sarkodie therefore emphasised that until the government completes the entire programme “I am not sure we should be jubilating now and thinking that we have arrived, we have not”.

Background

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said his government’s decision to secure a $3 billion extended credit facility with the global lender, the IMF, has paid off, looking at the rate of recovery of the Ghanaian economy since the facility was secured in 2023.

Speaking at the Jubilee House when the Managing Director of the Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, and her delegation called on him as part of her two-day visit to Ghana, President Akufo-Addo said his administration will continue to implement sound economic policies and stay the cause concerning the current IMF programme the country is executing.

“It is obvious that the decision we made in July 2022 to come and seek your support for the difficult economic circumstances in which we were involved as far as I am concerned is a decision that has already paid off. It has paid off in terms of the clear turnaround that we are seeing in our economy.

“The very dire circumstances in which we were at the time we took that difficult decision and where we are today is a very clear testimony of the fact that our decision to seek your support was a decision that was correct and we have had very positive benefits from it,” said President Akufo-Addo.

Ghana’s three-year-IMF programme is in its first year of implementation, with the nation so far, receiving a total of 1.2 billion United States dollars from the IMF in two payment tranches of 600 million dollars each.

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