President John Dramani Mahama has aimed a veiled dig at ex-President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s team, saying his administration won’t throw “kenkey and waakye parties” to mark Ghana’s IMF programme exit.
Addressing a citizens’ forum at Ndewura Jakpa Senior High School in Savannah Region on Saturday, May 23, President Dramani Mahama said his government took over an IMF-backed programme that was struggling and close to collapse when the NDC entered office in January 2025.
He said key targets under the deal had veered far off course, forcing his team to adopt tough steps to rebuild trust and keep the programme on track.
“We inherited the IMF programme from the previous government. At the time we took over, all the agreed performance indicators were out of track, which meant that the programme was in danger of derailment so we had to take some stringent actions to bring it back into alignment and we were able to do that.
”President Dramani Mahama said after rolling out fixes, later IMF review teams recognised the gains made to stabilize the deal.
He added that the most recent IMF mission, which wrapped up work in Ghana last week, gave the government’s efforts a thumbs-up, with proposals now set to go before the IMF Executive Board to clear the next $380 million payout.
“The missions that came approved the programme and the final mission just left Ghana last week and they have given us a satisfying mark and it is now going to the board to release the last tranche of $380 million to support our economy but we are not going to have a kenkey party because it is still work in progress.”
