Ghana will not quit IMF deal but wants changes, says president-elect

Record ID: 1889023

  • Title: Ghana will not quit IMF deal but wants changes, says president-elect
  • Date: 14th December 2024
  • Summary: MAHAMA SUPPORTER WAVING FLAG AT PASSING CARS MAHAMA SUPPORTERS PARADING PAST HIS OFFICE MAHAMA SUPPORTERS CHEERING AND WAVING FLAGS MAHAMA SUPPORTERS CHEERING AT PASSING CARS MAHAMA SUPPORTERS POURING WATER ON STREET TO SIGNIFY LIBATION ACCRA, GHANA (DECEMBER 14, 2024) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) GHANA'S PRESIDENT ELECT, JOHN DRAMANI MAHAMA, SAYING: "We're going to cut the budget of the office of the president, because if the president is asking us to tighten his belt, he must also tighten his belt. And so we're going to look at the office of the president budget and see where we can slash something so that we can use the money saved to fund some of our programs."
  • Embargoed: 28th December 2024 13:19
  • Keywords: africa beverage change cocoa commodities democracy elections emerging food gas ghana gold lawmakers markets minerals mining oil president voting west
  • Location: ACCRA, BOLE, GHANA
  • City: ACCRA, BOLE, GHANA
  • Country: Ghana
  • Topics: Africa,Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
  • Reuters ID: LVA003717714122024RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Ghana's President-elect John Dramani Mahama has said he will not abandon the country's $3 billion rescue package with the International Monetary Fund, but wants to review the deal to tackle wasteful state spending and upgrade the energy sector.
    Mahama, a former president who won the December 7 election by a wide margin, told Reuters late on Friday (December 13) he would also seek to tackle inflation and currency depreciation to mitigate a cost-of-living crisis in the West African nation.
    Mahama had said previously that he would renegotiate the IMF programme secured by the government of outgoing President Nana Akufo in 2023.
    Ghana's electoral commission declared Mahama, who was in office from 2012-16, winner of the presidential poll with 56.55% of the vote.
    The president-elect of the world's number two cocoa producer inherits a nation emerging from its worst economic crisis in a generation, with turmoil in its vital cocoa and gold industries.
    The IMF deal helped to halve inflation and returned the economy to growth, but Mahama said more work was needed to ease economic hardship.
    "The economic situation is dire ... and I'm going to put my soul, physique and everything into it and focus on making lives better for Ghanaians," said Mahama, whose National Democratic Congress party also won comfortably in a parliamentary vote held on Dec. 7.
    He said the "multiplicity of taxes" agreed to as part of the IMF programme had made Ghana "unpleasant for business".
    "We also think that (the IMF) have not put enough pressure on the government to cut wasteful expenditures," he said, adding a review would aim to reduce spending, including by the president's office.
    "If the president is asking us to tighten our belt, he must also tighten his," he said.
    Mahama said the IMF had agreed to send an early mission to conduct a regular review, adding discussions would focus on "how to smoothen out the debt restructuring" that is now in its final lap.
    He said a revised IMF deal would also seek sustainable solutions to the energy problems to avoid sustained power outages.
    (Production: Ndiaga Thiam, Cooper Inveen)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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