Ghana May Return to IMF Again Unless Structural Weaknesses are Fixed – IEA Says
Ghana could be forced back to the International Monetary Fund for an 18th bailout if policymakers fail to tackle entrenched structural weaknesses, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has cautioned.
Charles Mensa, chairman of the IEA, said fiscal vulnerabilities would persist unless the government introduced “bold and pragmatic measures” to reduce reliance on external rescue packages.
Speaking at a roundtable on Ghana’s mining regime, Mensa urged the authorities to leverage the country’s resource wealth more effectively and to strengthen domestic revenue mobilisation.
“For the record, we have been to the IMF for the seventeenth time, asking for a bailout — meaning we have gone bankrupt seventeen times,” he said. “Ghana is one of the largest gold producers in the world, yet with all these resources, we keep going bankrupt. Why? Because we have no control over our natural resources.”
Ghana, which first sought IMF support in 1966, is midway through a $3bn, three-year programme launched in 2023 to stabilise its debt-laden economy. While implementation is broadly on track, analysts warn the more difficult task will be sustaining reforms once the facility ends in early 2026.
The IEA cautioned that without fiscal discipline and a rebalancing of resource management, the country risks slipping back into the cycle of imbalances that has led it repeatedly to the IMF.
