With Ghana emerging from its worst economic crisis in a generation, President John Mahama has had to be pragmatic in his first two months in office.

The West African nation, which sends oil and gold to global markets, still benefits from a $3 billion (€2.8 billion) loan package from the International Monetary Fund. The conditions of the IMF debt deal will likely frame Mahama's economic policies.

As one of his early measures, Mahama put the previous government's appointments of teachers and nurses under review and launched an investigation into the operations of the National Service Authority — which provides newly qualified graduates the opportunity to have practical work exposure on the job — after more than 81,000 suspected ghost names were found on government payrolls.

Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson also announced major tax reforms to assist Ghanaians and businesses. 

But trade unions have warned that dismissing key employees could have devastating consequences — both for communities, and individuals. 

"Ghanaian politicians are playing with us," said Emmanual Opoku, who told DW that he graduated in 2020 and finally landed a job two years later at the Ghana Meteorological Agency.

But, in February, Opoku and his colleagues were told that their appointments were under review and that they should return home. 

A former Ghana Revenue Authority employee, who gave his name as Abubakar, said: "When I got the revocation letter, it broke my heart. It's not easy to get an opportunity without knowing anybody. It's giving me sleepless nights."

Since 1993, Ghana has predominantly been governed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) — except for the period between 2000 and 2004 and 2016 to 2024, when the New Patriotic Party (NPP) held office.

Since Mahama took office, thousands of government employees in Ghana have had their appointments revoked. 

"The trade unions say it's not good for the economy, but it's standard operating procedure for new governments, so I don't think this will cause problems for Mahama down the line," Emmanuel Bensah, a peace and security analyst, told DW.

When Mahama lost the 2016 election, he accused the incoming administration of NPP president Nana Akufo-Addo of dismissing civil servants employed during the final days of his administration.

Lord Mensah, an economist and finance lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School, told DW that Mahama is now simultaneously attempting to replace old appointments and fund the Ghanaian government's payroll. 

"I'm not surprised at all. Any attempt to add to the payroll will be a problem — the wage bill alone in Ghana, and debt payments, takes up more than 50% of Ghana's expenditure," he said.

The opposition NPP has called for the reinstatement of civil servants and has challenged the new administration's assertion that the recruitments did follow due process.

Vincent Assafuah, an NNP lawmaker, told DW: "There cannot be any proper unity by a president who gets into government and says anybody appointed before December 7 should be dismissed. It is a shame, and it affects the fabric of our democracy."

Assafuah said the people losing their jobs are "first and foremost Ghanaians" and who they voted for should have no impact on their employment prospects.

Revoking civil servant appointments has hit young Ghanaians such as Opoku and Abubakar especially hard. 

"Not everybody who was employed was a party boy. There are a lot of us who got this through other means. In any case, I have all the requirements to be employed," said Abubakar, adding that new administrations should not continue bad practices just because it was done to them. "We feel we have been used." 

"There is no hope for us!" Opoku said, his voice trembling with emotion. "We have student loans to pay, and they keep calling every day. I am not happy that I was born in Ghana."

As part of the IMF's conditions, Ghana has been advised to reduce expenditures.

"No government is ready to employ unless one that is about to exit, and wants to set up an economic bomb," Mensah said. 

Mensah added that Ghanaians must stop seeing the government as a path to an income or economic prosperity.

"We need private-sector-led job creation, and that is very important. We cannot continue to allow the government to be the main employer," Mensah said.

"I'm talking about an economy where interest rates are low, there's stability in prices, and import and export tariffs at the harbor come down," he said. 

Ultimately, when Finance Minister Ato Forson announced his budget on Tuesday, he seemingly tried to balance Mahama's campaign promises of abolishing unpopular "nuisance taxes" with the government's need to raise money amid funding cuts from Western partners.

Specifically, the reforms included scrapping the COVID-19 and Electronic Transfer levies, reducing the value-added tax rate (VAT), and raising the VAT registration threshold to help small businesses. He also proposed an NDC initiative to stretch industrial hours to create jobs and more production by creating a "24-hour" economy.

The curbs to US foreign aid have left Ghana facing a $156 million funding shortfall, with the health care and agriculture sectors bracing for scarcities in drugs and fertilizer.

Despite Ghana's desire to avoid jeopardizing $3.8 billion in World Bank financing and derailing the IMF loan package, lawmakers have reintroduced a bill that would become one of Africa's most restrictive pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

Uganda is set to lose an estimated $8.3 billion in funding as a result of its draconian anti-LGBTQ+ laws. This has made other African governments wary of imposing similar laws. Meanwhile, Mahama has said he would prefer a government-sponsored law rather than one sponsored by parliamentarians.

Mahama recently called on Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to rejoin the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc. The three Francophone states, which are ruled by military juntas, quit ECOWAS earlier this year and formed their own Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

The president said Ghana was "prepared to help them fight terrorism." He added that "there's more that unites us than divides us."

Making good on his promise to act as a "bridge" between ECOWAS and AES, Mahama met Malian leader Assimi Goita in Bamako over the weekend, and pledged to "restore trust" between ECOWAS and the AES. Mahama will continue his tour of "good neighborliness" to Burkina Faso and Niger.

"ECOWAS had not really prepared itself with a strategy for the Sahel states, so the Sahel states were left a little isolated feeling that ECOWAS was playing the tune of some of its masters, especially the Francophone ones," Bensah said.

Though some analysts say not everyone in ECOWAS is likely to welcome Mahama's overtures to the AES, others believe that the Sahel states are critical to the function of the West African subregion.

Bensah said Mahama's pragmatic diplomacy was needed to shore up security in the region. 

"By establishing a specific envoy for the Sahel states, it's an indication that he's serious about trying to get the Sahel states back into the fold," he said.

Edited by: Keith Walker