Ghana’s energy sector poses ‘greatest risk’ to economy – IMF

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has endorsed the Finance Minister’s assessment that inefficiencies within Ghana’s energy sector pose the greatest threat to the country’s economic stability.

IMF Mission Chief for Ghana, Stéphane Roudet, reaffirmed the Fund’s longstanding concerns about the sector’s financial shortcomings, emphasizing that energy sector reforms remain a cornerstone of Ghana’s IMF-supported program.

Addressing Ghanaian journalists on the sidelines of the recently concluded IMF Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C., Stéphane Roudet highlighted that challenges in the sector—particularly the shortfall between revenue collected by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the true cost of electricity production—have been a major area of focus since the programme began.

“We knew from the beginning of the program that there were challenges related to the energy sector. The main challenge is that you have a large difference between what ECG can collect in terms of bills and the costs that are generated in the sector— that’s what we refer to as the energy sector shortfall,” he noted.

He also expressed optimism about the government’s forward-looking commitments to meeting the program’s targets.