I’ve read from our friends in the NPP, a suggestion that Ghana’s present single-digit inflation is not necessarily an achievement of the current administration because the IMF had already projected that the country would reach around 8% inflation by 2025.
The argument seems to imply that the steep decline in inflation was automatic, a predetermined outcome of external forecasts, not the product of deliberate economic management. But a closer look at Ghana’s economic performance between 2017 and 2024, especially the large gaps between IMF projections and actual results, as well as the many missed targets under the previous government, shows clearly that forecasts on paper rarely deliver themselves.
Ghana’s economic history demonstrates that projections do not guarantee results; only disciplined management and credible policymaking can turn forecasts into reality.
To understand this better, it is important to examine the nature of IMF projections. They are not prophecies. They are conditional forecasts, indicative of what might happen if governments implement policies decisively, maintain fiscal discipline, and if external conditions remain stable.
Ghana’s experience demonstrates just how fragile these assumptions can be. For example, IMF debt sustainability assessments consistently underestimated Ghana’s debt path. By 2022, Ghana’s actual public debt had exceeded earlier IMF projections by tens of percentage points of GDP.
The IMF itself admitted that it underestimated the pace of debt accumulation due to the rapid depreciation of the cedi, rising interest costs, rollover pressures, and persistent fiscal overruns between 2018 and 2022. These were not minor deviations; they were massive miscalculations that ultimately pushed Ghana into another IMF programme.
The same pattern is seen in inflation forecasts. In 2019, the IMF projected that Ghana’s inflation would steadily decline toward 6% in the medium term. Yet by 2022, inflation spiralled past 30%, then beyond 40%, and eventually above 50%. Clearly, no IMF model anticipated the scale of Ghana’s inflation crisis. This drastic variance shows that projections can be completely derailed by policy slippages, global shocks, and structural weaknesses in the economy. If IMF projections were self-fulfilling, Ghana would never have experienced inflation anywhere near 50%.
In fact, as recently as last month, the IMF projected that Ghana would end 2025 with inflation at around 12%, not 8%, citing global uncertainties and vulnerabilities in emerging markets. This was reported widely in the media. But this is where the argument collapses for those claiming the IMF “predicted” our current performance: the IMF forecasted 12% inflation, yet Ghana’s actual inflation has already fallen to 6.3%, the lowest level in many years.
The Ghana Statistical Service reported an 11-month consecutive decline, reaching 6.3% in November 2025, far outperforming IMF expectations.
This alone proves the point: projections are not destiny. Policy is. The IMF forecasted 12%, but deliberate policy implementation delivered 6%. I anticipate, Ghana’s year-end inflation will not be more than 9%, contrary to the projections of the IMF.
That gap between forecast and outcome is the clearest evidence that the current macroeconomic results came from real work, not from any prediction in Washington.
The same story is reflected in growth projections. Before COVID-19, the IMF repeatedly projected that Ghana’s economy would continue growing strongly at 5–7%. Yet in 2020, real GDP growth collapsed to nearly zero. These forecasts assumed a stable fiscal environment and strong buffers, assumptions that did not hold. Later growth outcomes were similarly weaker than projected, which reinforces the central argument: projections only hold when governments act with discipline, consistency, and competence.
It was not only the IMF that missed targets. The previous NPP government repeatedly missed its own projections across growth, revenue, inflation, deficits, and debt. In 2018, it projected growth of over 6.8%, but the outturn was lower. In 2020, it projected a growth of 6.8%, but the final figure was around 0.5%. The 2020 deficit target was 4.7% of GDP, yet the actual deficit ballooned to more than 11%. In 2022, the government projected a deficit of about 7%, revised it down to 6.6% mid-year, and still ended the year with a deficit closer to 10%.
Revenue targets were also missed consistently, and the revenue-to-GDP ratio actually declined between 2017 and 2021. These failures, led to Ghana’s return to the IMF in 2023, debt restructuring, loss of market access, and macroeconomic instability.
Taken together, these examples point to a single unmissable conclusion: projections do not produce results. They are hopes and not achievements. Ghana’s economic history shows that without disciplined fiscal management, effective monetary coordination, and credible structural reforms, projections collapse under the weight of reality.
Ghana missed IMF projections. Ghana missed government projections. Ghana missed medium-term fiscal and debt targets. And Ghana missed revenue mobilisation plans. The problem was never the forecasts; it was the failure to implement the policies required to meet them.
It is, therefore, misleading, even intellectually dishonest, to claim that Ghana’s return to single-digit inflation can be dismissed simply because the IMF once wrote a projection on paper. The only time a forecast becomes reality is when policymakers take the necessary steps to make it happen.
That is why the real debate should not be about who predicted what. It should be about who delivered results despite the predictions. Ghana’s economic past proves this truth. And Ghana’s economic future will depend on it even more.
Richmond Eduku
Finance & Energy Policy Analyst
