"This may be the last time we are going to IMF" – President Mahama


President John Dramani Mahama is hopeful that current talks with the International Monetary Fund for a solution to the country’s dire economic challenges may be the last time Ghana is turning to the Briton Wood institution for assistance.

He said government will tighten its fiscal policies in order to ensure that the financial indiscipline that occasioned the economic meltdown and created the conditions that compelled Ghana to turn to the IMF is not repeated.
  
President Mahama was addressing National Democratic Congress (NDC) supporters who converged at the Kotoka International Airport on Sunday to welcome him from the Dubai and the United States where he attended the 69th UN General Assembly meeting.

He said the gains being made by the local currency, the cedi, was an indication that the economy is pulling back from the brink of collapse.

Government is currently in talks with the IMF for technical and financial assistance.
The intervention of the IMF is to give policy credibility to the government’s home grown solutions as well as boost investor confidence.
 
President Mahama said the country has gone in and out of IMF prescriptions and expressed the hope that this will be the last time Ghana is going in for  IMF assistance.

Speaking on the Ebola Visrus which was the core of his address to the UN, President Mahama said Ghana will continue to give assistance to other countries battling the deadly virus which has so far claimed 3,000 lives in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria.

He gave the assurance that government is also working to ensure that the disease does not enter the shores of Ghana.

GBC