The Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) CEO, Mark Badu-Aboagye, has warned Ghana’s political leadership that the country cannot continue to return to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if it is serious about economic independence.

Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express Business Edition on Thursday, he said Ghana’s repeated reliance on IMF programmes has become a national embarrassment.

According to him, the country must maintain fiscal discipline and the reforms that typically accompany such arrangements.

“If we [Ghana] continuously do what we are doing, then that means that we should be under IMF for life,” he said.

He argued that if Ghana exits an IMF programme and still fails to manage its economy, then the country has effectively surrendered its sovereignty and should stop pretending otherwise.

“If after the exit of the IMF, we cannot manage our economy, then the IMF should bring their head office here and control us,” he stated.

Mr Badu-Aboagye said the private sector's frustration is rooted in Ghana’s long-running cycle of economic instability, in which reforms are embraced only under external pressure and quickly abandoned once the programme ends.

He maintained that Ghana has already implemented key IMF-backed measures, and there is no justification for walking away from them simply because the country has “exited” the programme.

“This is because all the things that they have asked us to do, that we have done, I think we should continue,” he said.

The GNCCI CEO warned that deviating from the “fundamental changes” introduced under IMF supervision is exactly why Ghana keeps returning to the Fund.

“There shouldn’t be any reason why we should deviate from these important fundamental changes that the IMF have brought to us; that is why we keep going there,” he stressed.

Badu-Aboagye also criticised the political narrative that often surrounds IMF engagement, where the Fund is portrayed as an enemy or an unwanted force, even though governments repeatedly seek its support when the economy runs into trouble.

He noted that Ghana has gone to the IMF “17 times,” yet public discourse still treats IMF programmes as a humiliation rather than a corrective framework for discipline.

“I mean 17 times, and anytime you go there, it’s as if the IMF is a devil, that when they come, we don’t want to go there,” he said.

His comments come amid renewed debate over Ghana’s economic direction and whether the country can maintain stability without resorting to external bailouts.

For the private sector, the GNCCI CEO’s remarks reflect a deeper concern: that Ghana’s policy inconsistency and weak commitment to reforms continue to undermine investor confidence and long-term planning.

Mr Badu-Aboagye’s central argument was that Ghana’s problem is not a lack of knowledge about what must be done, but an inability to sustain those actions beyond IMF supervision.

By insisting that the reforms should continue even after an exit, he positioned the IMF not as the source of Ghana’s hardship, but as a mirror reflecting Ghana’s own failure to sustain discipline.

His warning was simple: if Ghana cannot manage after an IMF programme, then the country has no business celebrating exits, because the dependency has already become permanent.