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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his Third State of the Nation Address in Parliament on Thursday February 21, 2019, has disclosed that Ghana will finally end its economic partnership with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) program in April 2019.

“We have concluded the program with the IMF and we will continue with the discipline; we should sign off from the deal in April. This is the 15th time Ghana has to go to the IMF in the 62 years of our independence. We cannot make the progress we all desire and unless we are consistent in discipline in the management of our economy.”

“We have gone through another round of painful imposition to get to where we are today with healthy fundamentals,” he added.

Speaking on GDP growth of the country, President Akufo-Addo mentioned that production of the economy as being measured by real GPD growth has picked up very strongly for the past two years.

He stressed that “from 3.4% in 2016, real GDP growth increased to 8.1% in 2017. In 2018, provisional data for the first 3 quarters indicates the strong real GDP growth of 6%, higher than the annual target of 5.6%. real GDP growth for 2019 is forecast at 7.6%”.

In the President’s State of Nation Address, he said “Ghana’s recent GDP growth has placed among the highest in the world with fiscal deficit is being brought down from the 7.3% rebase GDP in 2016 to provisional 3.9% of GDP of the end of 2018”.

He again said that the debt to GDP ratio has declined from the 56.6% of GDP in 2016 to 54.8% of the end of 2018; thus Inflation has dropped from 15.4% of the end of 2016 to 9.9% in January this year; the lowest in 6 years as announced by the Ghana’s Statistical Service last week.