By Iddi Yire, GNA Special Correspondent in LondonĀ
London, June 1, GNA – President John Dramani Mahama has held a Town Hall Engagement in London with diaspora Ghanaians living in the United Kingdom, telling them that Ghana has successfully completed the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) extended credit facility and that the country is now working again.
The IMF extended credit facility was designed to restore macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability after a severe economic crisis under the previous government.
The engagement forms part of President Mahama’s five-day official visit to the UK.
He said Ghana’s macro economy was stable and that all the macro indicators were looking very much in the right direction.
President Mahama said said the previous Government had entered into the IMF programme before his administration took over the reign of Government but unfortunately after the fourth review, all the performance criteria from June the year before in 2024 had gone completely off track.
“And so the IMF programme was completely derailed off track. And so when we took office, the next review was going to take place in April,” he stated.
“And so happily they sent a small technical team. We sat together. Everything that the government had agreed with them, was off track. And so it meant that between then and when the fund arrived for the main review, we had to take very, very strong decisions.”
President Mahama said his administration had to take quite stringent bitter decisions as part efforts to address the situation.
“But that is what life is about when you are ill. Sometimes you have to take better medicine before you get better. And I’m happy, as he said, to say that the sacrifices that Ghanaians made have paid off. And Ghana is, like he said, back again.”
He noted that a lot of people were surprised at how it was achieved; adding that Ghana had become the poster boy for economic recovery across the world.
“Anytime they go for the spring meetings of the World Bank and the IMF, everybody is pointing to the other African countries to Ghana and say, go to Ghana and learn how they did it.”
GNA.