Mahama: I’ll Grow Economy Beyond IMF, WB Forecast

President John Mahama has said he is confident his administration can clock a growth rate higher than the benchmark set by the Bretton Wood institutions for this year.

“The African average growth rate predicted by the world bank and IMF is 3 per cent and for Ghana they predict 3.3 per cent, I’m more bullish, I believe that Ghana will grow closer to 4 per cent, maybe between 3.8 and 4 per cent, and we predict that in 2017, Ghana’s economy is going to grow by about 6 per cent, and, so, this country is doing well,” Mr Mahama told Sunrise FM Thursday April 14 during his ‘Accounting To The People’ tour of the eastern region.

As far as the country’s four-year power crisis was concerned, he said: “We have resolved the power crisis, we’ve been able to match demand to supply, and, so, the electricity crisis that hit us is gradually becoming a thing of the past.”

“Today the FPSO is shut down but we’ve made contingency arrangements and we are firing most of the power plants using crude oil and providing enough electricity for our people because we’ve done the structural changes that would ensure that the utilities can continue to provide us with power.

“We have signed the agreement with ENI, which is a $7.5 billion investment agreement, the single largest investment ever made in Ghana probable after the Akosombo Dam and that is going to provide sufficient 1.5 how many million cubic feet of gas to produce power, the regional electricity market for West Africa is going to become operational at the end of this year, it means that if Ghana is able to produce more power and we have excess, we can put it on the regional electricity market and supply to Burkina Faso and to Mali and to others who do not have enough power.

“And, so, we are on the right track. Investor confidence is high. The last Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) Investor Confidence Index shows that there is high confidence in the prospects of the Ghanaian economy, and, so, we are doing something right, and if anybody says that this economy is in crisis then it’s mainly for political propaganda purposes,” Mr Mahama noted.