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Almost halfway through his mandate as Ghana's President, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, is rating the country as a "much better place" economically, than a couple of years ago, though he concedes Ghana is not out of the woods yet.

According to him, in order to address some structural economic problems the erstwhile John Dramani Mahama government bequeath to the NPP, his administration has had to implement some not too "particularly popular" fiscal measures.

The President further stated that "the free easy money" that existed under the previous government is "no longer there", and people now "make money" they "worked for".

He was speaking in an interaction with the Ghanaian community in South Africa after participating in the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100, over the weekend; a programme that honoured the centenary and celebrated the legacy of South Africa's first democratic President, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

The President had earlier taken advantage of the opportunity to popularize the 2030 UN Charter on Human Development on the Sustainable Development Goals, at meetings with some world leaders, philanthropic influencers, celebrities and other members of society to pledge and commit to making a difference.

Buttressing his point with some economic indicators, President Akufo-Addo stated that the country's economic growth has more than doubled from its 2016 level of 3.7% to 8.5% as of 2017.

"....In my view, we are in a much better place. Some of the facts are matters of record that cannot be disputed. The economy we inherited in 2016, is not the same economy that we have today. We have a much stronger macro-economy in Ghana today and a much stronger economy that is operating in our country today....

"Bringing back discipline in the management of our public finance...it has not been easy and it has also not been particularly popular in some circles because the free easy money that there was before, it is no longer there. We have to have a different dimension....whereby people make money because they worked for it," Nana Addo said.

Touching on the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda, Nana Addo said he feels strongly about the concept and bemoaned the fact that most of the keys areas of country's economy, are still heavily-dependent on donor support.

The President, who commented on virtually all areas of the economy in his address, - including the recent power outages, the fight against galamsey, the menace of vigilantism and the recent crisis that hit the banking sector, resulting in the liquidation of some 7banks, industralizing the economy through the 1D-1F initiative - also reiterated his government's resolve to structurally transform the economy through investing in agriculture and developing the country's human capital.