play videoProfessor Mike Oquaye is a former Speaker of Parliament
A former Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, has called for a complete shift away from Ghana’s overreliance on support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), arguing that the Fund’s Extended Credit Facility programme has not been beneficial to the country.
Ghana is currently under a $3 billion Extended Credit Facility (ECF) programme with the IMF, designed to restore macroeconomic stability and ensure fiscal sustainability.
The IMF is expected to review Ghana’s fifth programme in early December 2025, which could unlock approximately US$380 million for the Bank of Ghana, bringing total disbursements to US$2.6 billion.
Speaking at the IEA’s Seminar Series on Ghana’s Natural Resources Management Regime under the 17th IMF Programme, on October 21, 2025, Professor Oquaye stated that the conditionality’s tied to IMF bailout programmes have done more harm than good.
He emphasised that Ghana has sought assistance from the IMF for over seventeen years, yet the support has not yielded meaningful benefits considering the actual state of the economy.
“Those programmes have not been of any use to us. They ran amicably against our social and economic development. The conditionality’s attached to IMF build-out programmes tend to be costly to the nation. But, having gone 17 times, in other words, after two or three visits, if there were any circle in this programme, we would have noticed by now, and we would have revealed, we would get more and more sick as the years go by,” he stated.
He instead called for a paradigm shift toward harnessing Ghana’s natural resources.
IMF to review Ghana’s fifth program in early December
He said the only way to transform the country’s fortunes is for the government to fully utilize Ghana’s natural resources, which he described as the path to financial independence and economic recovery.
“And I believe that if we come to truly appreciate that this is a no-go area, then we will seriously ask ourselves: What do we do? What do we have? And we must examine what we possess in terms of our gold, diamond, bauxite, manganese, lithium, oil, etc.,” he added.
For his part, the Immediate Past Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church, Most Reverend Dr Paul Kwabena Boafo, asserted that Ghana’s repeated return to the IMF should not become a norm but rather serve as a wake-up call for transformative change.
He urged leaders to use this opportunity to build a more resilient, self-sustaining economy grounded in long-term planning and the effective use of national resources.
“The IMF must be a turning point, and the bailout must become a thing of the past. By stewarding our natural resources with integrity and innovation, Ghana can chart a new path toward economic sovereignty and sustainable development. The IMF bailout should be a relic of the past,” he noted.
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