Ghana's economy yet to fully recover – Dr. Owusu Sarkodie

Economics Lecturer at the University of Ghana, Dr. Adu Owusu Sarkodie, has stated that despite the positive improvement in the country’s macro-economy, the Ghanaian economy is yet to fully recover.

His comment is coming at a time the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is predicting a 15% end-of-year inflation in 2024.

This means that the increasing prices of goods and services will slow down this year and drastically in the next three years.

Speaking to the host of Business Live, Pious Kojo Backah on Joy News, Dr. Sarkodie said there’s still more to be done to optimise the significant gains made over the period.

“All these indicators are showing positive signs, kudos to all of us for achieving that, but we are on a recovery path. The point must be made clear that we haven’t arrived yet. Ghana’s economy has not fully recovered because BoG’s inflation target of 8%+\-2% is yet to be achieved. So even though it has declined rapidly from 54% to 23% we are still far from the medium target of 10.0%”.

The Economist further admonished managers of the economy to thrive to ensure Ghana achieves the end-of-year target.

“We should thrive and arrive at single-digit inflation next coming year [2025] to propel the economy”, he added.

Ghana’s fiscal economy is expected to improve significantly in the next four years as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is projecting a lower fiscal deficit to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio in 2024, 2025, 2026 and 2027 respectively.

This would be aided by the Fund-supported programme which has culminated in ambitious structural fiscal reforms by the country bolstering domestic revenues, improving spending efficiency, strengthening public financial and debt management, preserving financial sector stability as well as enhancing governance and transparency.