President of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), has highlighted the need for urgent structural reforms to address the persistent challenges hindering Ghana’s economic growth.
Speaking on Business Focus on TV3, Dr. Humphrey Ayim Darke, emphasised that despite recent efforts to reduce the policy rate, interest rates remain stubbornly high, limiting the impact of monetary policy on loan costs. He attributed this to deep-rooted structural issues that have plagued the Ghanaian economy for over three decades.
“One will say that there are still structural difficulties that are inherent in the Ghanaian economy over the last three plus decades. Such structural reforms have not been effectively dealt with and these are part of the policy propositions we seek to see in the incoming manifestos and elections’’, he said.
The AGI President called for a comprehensive approach to structural reforms, urging political parties to prioritise these issues in their manifestos for the upcoming elections. He emphasised the importance of implementing innovative solutions to propel Ghana’s economy forward, particularly in the context of the IMF intervention and debt restructuring.
“How then do you deploy a structural transformation in this context to give us another room from 2026 to 2027, in the quest of that we know that there are seasonal headwinds that are inevitable”, Dr. Darke quizzed.
Dr. Darke acknowledged the seasonal headwinds that inevitably affect the Ghanaian economy. However, he stressed that effective economic management and targeted interventions can mitigate the impact of these factors, such as exchange rate fluctuations and commodity price drops.
‘‘However, granted you can manage your economy properly and put the right intervention in there, such headwinds can be managed, like the exchange rate factors, commodity price drops that come in seasonally’’, Dr. Darke noted.
By addressing these structural challenges, Dr. Darke believes that Ghana can create the necessary conditions for sustainable economic growth and development beyond the current IMF programme.
By Eben Agyekum-Boateng, 3Business
