The unexpected lesson of Ghana’s 17th IMF bail-out

Ghana threw off the colonial yoke in 1957, its first president, Kwame Nkrumah, complained that it was not truly free. Rich countries still held it back, he said, and was a “neocolonialist trap”. His spirit lives on. Ghana’s current finance minister likens programmes to the way Israelites were treated in ancient Egypt. All told, Ghana has spent 22 of the past 35 years under the fund’s supervision. In July it asked for a new bail-out, . You might think that a country that keeps asking for money is a mess. But Ghana is one of the most prosperous in the region, and a lively democracy to boot. Its problem is that its politicians, starting with Nkrumah, have been addicted to spending. The latest crisis follows a surge of borrowing and an economic crunch, which have priced Ghana out of credit markets and raised the risk of default. Given that it is only three years since Ghana completed its previous programme, this suggests woeful economic management.