Economist at the University of Ghana Business School, Professor Lord Mensah, believes that the Finance Minister should have exercised a bit of restraint before assuring Ghanaians that the economy was rebounding.

Speaking on the sidelines of IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington on April 21, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam announced that the country's economy is moving towards stability, citing robust economic progress and strong recovery as key factors.

Dr Adam emphasised the significant improvement in Ghana's economic indicators, adding that the primary deficit, which stood at 4.3% of GDP at the end of 2022, had decreased substantially.

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By the end of 2023, Dr Adam highlighted that the primary deficit had reduced to a mere 0.3%, marking a remarkable four-percentage point decrease.

According to Professor Mensah, a proper assessment of the economy could be offered through all other indicators, including full-scale external debt service. Until that is done, it was a bit too soon to assert that the economy was rebounding.

In an interview on Joy FM’s Midday News on April 22, he said “The economy may be rebounding but then we have to also take into perspective (that) this is an economy that is not in full scale of its external debt service. We have suspended our external debt service and whatever the case may be, external debt service will require dollar so there will be more demand on the dollar which will call for a high price for the dollar and as a result we get the currency reacting to it.

“So effectively I would have waited to get the government fully in its debt service before I can comment on some of these indicators because you know these indicators are related.”

“When you talk about inflation the first true effect of the exchange rate is inflation. Obviously, once you are not servicing your debt and there is no full-scale demand of dollar on the market, we can’t comment that much on the exchange rate and then the inflation that we are recording,” he added.

Also, the Finance Minister expressed optimism in Ghana’s ability to secure IMF board approval by June to secure a much-awaited $360 million release.

The economist said this feat was possible since the government has been able to reach a level of understanding with external creditors; as such, the June timeline is quite realistic.