By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Ghana’s President-elect, John Dramani Mahama, says that upon his inauguration on January 7, he will press for a review of the $3 billion rescue package from the global lender, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to reduce wasteful spending and increase investment in the country’s energy sector.
Mahama, who was elected for a second non-consecutive term in office after the 7 December election in the West African country, said there is no plan to abandon the deal.
“When I talk about renegotiation, I don’t mean we’re jettisoning the programme,” Mahama, who has earlier stated his intention to renegotiate the IMF programme secured by the outgoing President Nana Akufo’s government in 2023, told Reuters on Friday.
“We’re bound by it, but what we’re saying is within the programme, it should be possible to make some adjustments to suit reality.”
The incoming President also said he would focus on tackling inflation and currency depreciation to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis in the gold-rich country.
Ghana is gradually emerging from its worst economic crisis in a generation, with its key revenue sources, cocoa and gold, facing challenges.
The IMF intervention helped to halve inflation and return the economy to growth, but Mahama said more work was needed to ease economic hardship.
“The economic situation is dire … and I’m going to put my soul, physique, and everything into it and focus on making lives better for Ghanaians,” said Mahama, who previously held office from 2012 to 2016.
He said the “multiplicity of taxes” agreed as part of the IMF programme had made Ghana “unpleasant for business”.
“We also think that (the IMF) have not put enough pressure on the government to cut wasteful expenditures,” he said, adding that a review would aim to reduce spending, including by the president’s office.
“If the president is asking us to tighten our belt, he must also tighten his,” he said.
Mahama said the IMF had agreed to send an early mission to conduct a regular review, adding that discussions would focus on “how to smoothen out the debt restructuring” that is now in its final stages.
He said a revised IMF deal would also seek sustainable solutions to the energy problems to avoid prolonged power outages.
“We’re going to face quite a critical situation in the energy sector. The Electricity Company of Ghana is the ‘sick man’ of the whole value chain, and we need to quickly fix it,” Mahama said.
