No IMF Program Can Solve Ghana's Economic Challenges - Here's Why!

State sovereignty has remained unchallenged in the international system for several decades. However, the dominance of factors such as global financial flows, the influence of international organizations, multinational corporations, the internet, and global media empires, have stalled the practice of the idea of government free from external control, autonomy, and independent entities in the twenty-first century. Ghana is not exempt from the harsh realities of neo-imperialism. This season of neo-imperialism from the global north has created significant reasons for why African countries, such as Ghana continue to be trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty despite years of tied-aid dependency and foreign direct investments.

Given that African countries have remained a laboratory for international schemes in the name of "good governance and economic development" since 1989, state sovereignty in African countries is in jeopardy. Despite the mutually influential roles of how African states and supranational actors form and are molded by globalization processes, African governments have had a minimal stake in influencing crucial decisional outcomes, instead of reacting to the processes embedded in such a "near-linear" relationship. As such, the traditional role of the state, as in the case of Ghana's implementation of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) as put forward by the Bretton Woods Institutions (IMF & World Bank) promotes privatization and market deregulation which essentially erodes the state's capacity to own its development process. The negative impact of this is that it undermined government legitimacy and political competence to govern.

This is the 17th time Ghana is going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for an economic bailout. The Fund has been Ghana's source of economic policy direction in a bid to revitalize the Ghanaian economy and create a new pathway for structural changes that are informed by development ideals. Meanwhile, the support often comes with conditionalities, all of which point to capitalist objectives. This imposition of a top-down economic recovery approach results in policies that do not directly prioritize Ghana's "actual" development needs. This significantly highlights a misalignment between IMF aims and Ghana's interests and expectations for development outcomes. Of interest, the implementation of SAPs in Ghana supports the IMF and World Bank's neoliberal capitalist goals, which have harmed Ghanaians' democratic, sovereign, and human rights as well as the country's economic development possibilities. This explains why the IMF and World Bank have failed to meet their mandate in three areas: poverty alleviation, improving living standards in Africa, and globalization.

The "Ghana Beyond Aid" agenda was introduced by the administration of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo with the ultimate goal of making Ghana an aid-free country. The focus is on mobilizing the resources, ideas, and efforts of business, labor, civil society, traditional leaders, and all other significant players in society to build an all-encompassing, world-class investment environment that would enable Ghana to engage in meaningful trade and development partnerships with the West. This initiative has failed beyond any immediate repair as of now. According to Bloomberg, Ghana's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be 84.6% in debt by the end of this year. This suggests that before the end of 2022, the country's debt will have surpassed $400 billion. The Ghanaian government is currently negotiating a new economic recovery program with the IMF under the direction of the Finance Ministry. This will not address the critical challenges of the Ghanaian economy since such external interventions only seek to provide ad hoc policies and unfavorable conditionalities that burden the ordinary Ghanaian.

The solution is to address the internal problems that plague Ghana's political economy and deny millions of Ghanaians the chance to see the government as a supportive mechanism that can contribute to a genuine and positive transformation of their lives.

Benjamin Kwasi Akompi, a development enthusiast, researcher, and creative writer, is the author of this article. You can contact with him via: [email protected]