President of Ghana His Excellency Nana Akufo-Addo has asserted that his administration has been able to resolve the debilitating power crisis it inherited from the previous government headed by Mr John Dramani Mahama.
He added that his administration is also clearing the $2.4 billion energy sector debts they inherited from the Mahama government.
Consequently, the President said: “Today, we are exporting energy to Burkina Faso, we will begin, again, to Togo,”
The provision of sustainable, reliable power, the President said, is key to the smooth operation of the bauxite, iron and steel industries that are being created by his administration.
Speaking at a town hall meeting with members of the Ghanaian community on Saturday, 30 March 2019 in Worcester, Massachusetts, President Akufo-Addo said the 16th International Monetary Fund (IMF) Programme, entered into by the Mahama government in 2015, should be the last time Ghana resorts to such a progamme for the restoration of fiscal discipline in her economy.
He noted that the 2015 IMF programme had to be entered into because “the Mahama government had lost control over the management of the economy.”
It was, thus, necessary to go through the programme to restore a certain amount of discipline into Ghana’s public finances.
“Even when they left office in 2016, the issue was still at large. But, by discipline, by honest management of our public’s finances, we have brought the situation back to where it should be. So, we have exited the IMF programme,” the President said.
He continued, “What I am saying to Ghanaians, to all of us, is that, in the 62 years of our independence, this was the 16th IMF bailout programme that the nation had gone into. Let it be the last time that we would resort to an IMF programme.”
