Ghana President Pledges Financial Prudence After IMF Deal Ends

ACCRA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo pledged that the government will maintain fiscal discipline following the completion of a four-year bailout program with the International Monetary Fund.

West Africa’s second-biggest economy last week passed the final review of an almost $1 billion extended credit-facility program that it entered into in April 2015 when a currency crisis caused inflation to soar and debt to become unaffordable. During the course of the program, the fiscal deficit has narrowed and debt levels stabilized while inflation halved and economic expansion accelerated.

Spending money that you don’t have “is always the road to chaos,” Akufo-Addo said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

 “We have to learn that discipline in the management of our public finances has to be the basic element for the building of our economy,” he said. “That’s the lesson that the latest bailout program from the IMF should impress upon all of us.”

Source: Bloomberg Business News