President Nana Akufo-Addo on 1 July announced an about-turn and told finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta to open negotiations for an IMF programme, after previously pledging not to borrow from the fund.
Securing an IMF deal will be no easy task. Mark Bohlund, senior analyst at REDD Intelligence in London, says he is “very sceptical that Ghana will be able to secure either a staff-level agreement or an executive board approval for an IMF programme.”
The country’s public debt is “clearly not sustainable and relations with the fund were “frayed” during much of the most recent IMF programme from 2015 to 2018, Bohlund tells The Africa Report.