Former Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, has once again questioned Ghana’s heavy dependence on the International Monetary Fund (IMF), arguing that the country’s repeated engagements with the Fund have yielded little to no lasting economic benefit.
Speaking at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) Policy Dialogue Series on Ghana’s Natural Resource Management, Prof. Oquaye said successive IMF programmes have failed to bring the desired economic recovery and transformation Ghana has long sought.
“The IMF Programme has not done us any good. IMF cannot save us. After two or three visits, if there was any succour in these programmes, we would have noticed by now and we would have been healed,” he asserted.
According to him, Ghana’s reliance on IMF prescriptions over the decades has not produced sustainable growth but has instead imposed restrictive policies that weaken innovation and limit the government’s fiscal flexibility.
He argued that it was time for the country to rethink its approach to economic management and seek homegrown solutions anchored in the effective use of its abundant natural resources.
“If we seriously come to understand that this is a no-go area, we will begin to ask ourselves, what do we do? Is it by looking at our gold, oil, diamond?” he queried.
Ghana is currently implementing its 17th IMF-supported programme, a $3 billion Extended Credit Facility (ECF) aimed at restoring macroeconomic stability and ensuring debt sustainability.
The country is expected to exit the programme by May 2026, though some analysts have raised doubts about the government’s ability to do so within the scheduled timeframe.
However, both President John Dramani Mahama and Bank of Ghana Governor, Dr. Johnson Asiama , have maintained that Ghana remains on course to complete the programme as planned.
Prof. Oquaye’s comments, however, signal a growing sentiment among critics that the country’s long-standing dependence on the Fund has done little to achieve self-sustaining economic growth.
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