Economist Professor Godfred Bokpin says a three-month extension of Ghana’s programme with the International Monetary Fund is necessary to guarantee a clean, credible, and orderly exit, noting that the move was widely anticipated.

Reacting to the IMF Staff Report released after the Fund’s Executive Board approved Ghana’s fifth programme review, Professor Bokpin explained that the extension—pushing the programme’s end date from May to August—was initiated by the Ghanaian authorities themselves. As he puts it, “the request for the programme itself had to come from the Ghana government, and that is why we say it is an IMF-supported programme.”

According to him, policymakers had long known that additional time would be required to properly conclude the reform agenda. Professor Bokpin notes that “at least three months technical extension will be needed to wrap up essentially from the structural benchmarks and the rest of them so that the exit arrangement can be tidy,” adding that the decision was therefore “not surprising.”

Indeed, he argues that the real surprise would have been a failure to grant the extension. Professor Bokpin recalls that the original IMF programme was approved on May 17, 2023, with a cutoff date of December 31, 2025. Without the additional time, he explains, “technically the programme would have ended just a couple of days from now,” leaving key commitments unfinished.

He stresses that the significance of IMF-supported programmes goes beyond financing, pointing instead to the reforms they are designed to deliver. “If you look at what we had agreed under the programme to undertake, especially from the structural reforms,” he notes, “remember that IMF-supported programmes, the benefits have to do with the reforms.”

In that context, the extension, Professor Bokpin maintains, should be viewed not as a delay, but as a necessary step to consolidate reforms, protect credibility, and position Ghana for a smoother transition into the post-programme period.