News Guide Africa

Tag: Dr Cassiel Ato Forson

  • Ghana’s sovereign risk drops as debt service falls below 20%

    Ghana’s sovereign risk drops as debt service falls below 20%

    By Adnan Adams Mohammed

     

    Ghana’s sovereign risk profile received a significant boost as the Finance Ministry reported a dramatic contraction in its debt-servicing absorption rate, dropping from a high of over 50% of national revenue to under 20%.

    For institutional holders of Ghanaian sovereign paper and frontier market investors, the sharp yield-to-revenue adjustment signals a structural improvement in debt sustainability, expanding liquidity buffers and mitigating near-term default risks.

    “In the past, Ghana spent over 50 percent of its national revenue on servicing debt,” stated Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson. “This left less money for schools, hospitals, roads, and other essential infrastructure. Today, I am proud to say that we have made significant progress. We now spend less than 20 percent of our revenue on servicing debt!”

    The improved debt profile is expected to enhance primary fiscal balances, giving the government greater flexibility to deploy capital into high-multiplier domestic investments without increasing its debt footprint.

    Fund managers view the reduction as a key operational de-risking event for the Ghanaian economy.

    “A debt-service ratio below 20% dramatically alters the risk-reward equation for institutional capital,” noted an Accra-based senior portfolio manager. “It creates real capacity for fiscal consolidation, stabilization of domestic credit markets, and greater predictable support for the cedi.”

    The lower service burden allows the government to focus on fiscal prudence, medium-term revenue mobilization, and capital expenditure without over-relying on secondary market borrowing.

    Market participants will monitor upcoming budget execution reports and IMF program benchmarks to evaluate the duration of these revenue gains and their long-term impact on sovereign yield curves.

     

  • Ghana signals post-restructuring recovery as historic GH¢10.8bn coupon payment disbursed

    Ghana signals post-restructuring recovery as historic GH¢10.8bn coupon payment disbursed

    By Adnan Adams Mohammed

     

    Ghana’s economic recovery marked a major milestone as the government fully disbursed GH¢10.8 billion in Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) coupon payments on schedule, delivering a powerful signal of stability to local financial institutions and international credit markets.

    The timely cash settlement, the largest single payout since the 2023 debt restructuring, brings total returns delivered to domestic bondholders over the past 18 months to GH¢41.36 billion.

    The disbursement fulfills an explicit promise made by Minister for Finance, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, during the 2026 Mid-Year Budget Review in Parliament, where he assured lawmakers and the public that the government would honor its obligations to bondholders without delay.

    Speaking during his mid-year address to Parliament, Dr. Ato Forson underscored that consistent cash settlements remain central to rebuilding trust among domestic creditors and international market participants.

    “There was a time when the world doubted us. Today, every payment made on time answers that doubt, assuring bondholders in London, pension funds in New York, and investors at home that our word is our bond,” Dr. Ato Forson told Parliament. “Payment after payment, coupon after coupon, Ghana has proven one thing: We now keep our word. That is how market confidence is rebuilt—not through speeches, but through repayment.”

     

    Following the transaction, the Ministry of Finance released an official statement confirming the disbursement and highlighting its macroeconomic significance for Ghana’s sovereign risk profile.

    “In line with government’s commitment to the continued success and credibility of Ghana’s domestic debt operations, the payment was settled in full and on schedule,” the Ministry stated. “This timely settlement underscores the government’s fiscal discipline, reduces sovereign default risk, and reinforces the country’s financial credibility. All future DDEP obligations will also be paid in full and on schedule.”

     

    Market analysts expect the GH¢10.8 billion liquidity injection into financial institutions, pension funds, and asset managers to improve local market liquidity while cementing Ghana’s broader economic recovery efforts following the completion of its domestic and external debt restructuring exercises.

     

  • Tech reforms drive historic GH¢6.1bn revenue surge in July …Asantehene urges expansion into informal sector

    Tech reforms drive historic GH¢6.1bn revenue surge in July …Asantehene urges expansion into informal sector

    By Adnan Adams Mohammed 

     

    Tech-driven customs reforms have propelled the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to a record-breaking GH¢6.1 billion revenue collection for July 2026, even as traditional authority calls for broader tax net expansion into the informal economy.

    The milestone follows the full April 2026 deployment of the Publican Artificial Intelligence (AI) trade valuation platform. The modern system has boosted customs revenues significantly from a pre-deployment monthly average of roughly GH¢4 billion.

    Detailing the financial gains during a delegation visit to the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi, GRA Commissioner-General Dr. Anthony Kwasi Sarpong emphasized the upward trajectory of national revenue mobilization.

    “The full implementation started in April 2026. So, between April and June, we are happy to report, and as the Finance Minister, Dr. Ato Forson, also echoed in Parliament, that we are collecting about GH¢1.3 to GH¢1.5 billion a month in addition to what we used to collect,” Dr. Sarpong stated.

    “Before the implementation, we were collecting about GH¢4 billion a month. As of June, we were collecting GH¢5.5 billion. In the month of July, we collected GH¢6.1 billion, which means that our custom reforms are working,” he added.

    Expand Net to Informal Workers, Plug Revenue Leakages

    Welcoming the delegation, the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, commended the revenue authority’s leadership for visible improvements in revenue mobilization while urging them to broaden their focus beyond formal sector employees.

    “The focus has always been on workers in the formal sector, while there are many others in the informal sector who can be educated on the need to pay taxes to support national development,” the Asantehene stated.

    To bring informal workers seamlessly into the tax fold and reduce reliance on external borrowing, the King recommended organizing informal operators into structured bodies.

    “Groups such as hairdressers, mechanics, and drivers could be encouraged to form cooperatives to make it easier for them to be integrated into the tax system,” Otumfuo Osei Tutu II suggested, while cautioning that structural leakages must also be eliminated. “I have observed an improvement in revenue collection since the current Board and Management took over… Despite these gains, some leakages still exist, and I urge you to work at addressing them.”

    Stakeholder Engagement and the Next Phase of Reforms

    Addressing the Asantehene’s observations, GRA Board Chairman Ricketts Hagan reaffirmed the Authority’s commitment to engaging stakeholders and easing the adoption of new compliance platforms.

    “There are new systems, including the Publican AI, which have been helping our efforts. I’m sure you heard noise about not being able to comprehend, but people are beginning to understand the system,” Mr. Hagan explained.

    Building on its customs automation successes, the GRA is currently scaling its digital strategy into retail taxation. The next phase centers on modernizing Value Added Tax (VAT) administration using real-time digital integration and automated transaction recording across commercial enterprises nationwide.

    “That is going to be a game changer in our VAT administration,” Dr. Sarpong noted, citing recently approved legislative support for point-of-sale system integration aimed at securing a transparent, tech-driven business environment for long-term economic growth.

     

  • Two economies, one country

    Two economies, one country

    Ghana’s growth rate depends on who you ask. That should worry the people who ask.

    BY THE KASOA ECONOMIST | ACCRA | AUGUST 3RD 2026

    Ask the African Development Bank how fast Ghana’s economy grew last year and the answer is 5.8%, with inflation down to 14.6% and the central bank’s policy rate cut by 350 basis points to 18%. Ask the World Bank and a rather different country appears with headline inflation of just 3.3% in February, a milder 5.1% growth forecast for 2026, and a story built less around monetary tightening than around a new offshore oilfield coming on stream. Both institutions are looking at the same economy. Neither is lying. That is the more unsettling possibility.

    Statistical disagreement between multilateral lenders is not new, and a gap of a percentage point or two in a growth forecast is the ordinary noise of economic modelling. What is harder to wave away is the inflation figure, where the AfDB’s 14.6% and the World Bank’s 3.3% are not measuring slightly different things. They appear to be measuring different months, different baskets, or different vintages of an economy that has been moving unusually fast. Ghana’s disinflation over the past two years has indeed been dramatic, but a nine-fold difference between two reputable sources is not a rounding error. It is a sign that Ghana’s statistical infrastructure is being asked to keep pace with a recovery that outran it.

    This matters more than it might seem. Investors, credit-rating agencies and Ghana’s own finance ministry all draw on these numbers to set expectations, price bonds and calibrate budgets. A pension fund manager in London deciding whether to buy Ghanaian eurobonds does not average the AfDB and World Bank figures. She picks whichever number suits her risk appetite, and worries about the other. A finance minister presenting a mid-year budget review, as Dr Cassiel Ato Forson did on July 23rd, must choose a single inflation assumption to build his numbers around, knowing that whichever he picks will be cited by critics as either too rosy or too gloomy. Divergent data does not average out into a sensible middle. It hands ammunition to whoever wants to make an argument.

    Some of the gap is methodological and defensible. The AfDB’s 14.6% plausibly reflects a year-on-year headline rate drawn from an earlier reading, capturing the tail end of Ghana’s post-crisis disinflation. The World Bank’s 3.3% looks more like a recent monthly print, taken after food and fuel prices had continued falling through the first quarter of 2026. Both can be true without contradicting each other, in the way that “it rained heavily this year” and “it is not raining right now” can both be accurate descriptions of the same country. The trouble is that neither institution’s report, in its public-facing summary at least, makes this clear enough for a non-specialist reader and precious few of the officials, journalists and traders who repeat these numbers are specialists in vintage-adjustment.

    There is a second, less charitable explanation, and it deserves airing rather than suppression, in the spirit of taking one’s own side’s argument seriously enough to test it. Multilateral development banks are not neutral computers. They are institutions with mandates, and mandates shape emphasis. The World Bank’s mission leans toward showcasing the success of the reforms it has helped finance the energy-sector clean-up, the cocoa restructuring, the new PECAN oilfield are all, in some sense, its own investment thesis vindicated. A lower inflation figure and a growth story anchored in new oil production reads as an institution pleased with its portfolio. None of this need be conscious cherry-picking. Institutions, like people, notice the data that confirms the story they are already telling.

    Ghana’s own statistical service is, in principle, the arbiter that should settle this. The Ghana Statistical Service publishes its own monthly consumer price index, and any credible number should ultimately be reconciled against it rather than triangulated from two foreign lenders with different reporting cycles. That the AfDB and World Bank figures diverge this sharply, rather than converging on the GSS’s own print, suggests both institutions are working from data with meaningfully different cut-off dates. This is an unglamorous explanation, but the likeliest one, and a reminder that “as of when” is doing more analytical work in African macroeconomic reporting than most headlines admit.

    The deeper lesson is not really about Ghana. Statistical capacity across much of sub-Saharan Africa remains thin, price surveys are conducted less frequently than in rich countries, and GDP rebasing exercises can move growth estimates by several percentage points overnight without the underlying economy having changed at all. When the underlying data infrastructure is this fragile, every multilateral report becomes less a measurement than an estimate wearing measurement’s clothing, and readers who treat these numbers with false precision are building conclusions on sand.

    None of this should curdle into blanket cynicism about African economic data, which is a lazier failure mode than the naive credulity it replaces. Ghana’s broad direction of travel such as falling inflation, a shrinking fiscal deficit, an oil sector adding new production, a currency under strain but not collapse, is consistent across every source, AfDB and World Bank alike, even where the decimal points disagree. The disagreement is real, but it is a disagreement about degree, not about direction. That is a meaningfully different, and less alarming, kind of uncertainty than it first appears.

    What Ghana needs, and what its statistical service, its finance ministry and its development partners could usefully coordinate on, is a single published reconciliation each quarter one table, one set of dated figures, footnoted by source and vintage, that journalists and analysts can cite without having to guess which institution’s number to trust this month. It is a modest, unglamorous fix for an unglamorous problem. But a country trying to convince bond markets it has left crisis management behind cannot afford to let its own success story be told in two contradictory voices at once.

     

  • Technology-Driven ports reforms yield $300m revenue surge – Finance Minister reveals

    Technology-Driven ports reforms yield $300m revenue surge – Finance Minister reveals

    By Adnan Adams Mohammed

     

    An artificial intelligence platform deployed across Ghana’s ports has generated more than $300 million in additional revenue over three months, reflecting the impact of technology-led compliance measures at the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).

    Presenting the 2026 Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review in Parliament, Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson explained that the Publican AI platform introduced by the Customs Division in March 2026 has significantly curbed trade misinvoicing and manual valuation loopholes.

    The automated verification system has driven a 17.5% increase in assessed import values, delivering a 17% rise in monthly customs revenue without adding new levies or increasing import volumes.

    Closing Leakages Without Raising Taxes

    Delivering the mid-year budget statement, Dr. Forson highlighted that technology-driven compliance tools have proven far more effective at boosting state coffers than hiking tax rates on businesses and citizens.

    “Since the introduction of these AI-powered customs reforms, monthly Customs revenue has increased by approximately 17 percent, reflecting stronger compliance, more effective enforcement, and significantly reduced leakages,” Dr. Forson told Parliament.

     

    The Finance Minister emphasized that the revenue growth was achieved alongside broad fiscal relief measures, including the abolition of several levies.

    “The results have been remarkable,” Dr. Forson stated. “Despite abolishing multiple taxes and introducing no new tax handles, non-oil tax revenue increased by 0.5 percent of GDP from 12.6 percent of GDP in 2024 to 13.1 percent of GDP in 2025. Simply put, Government collected more revenue even after abolishing nuisance taxes.”

    “The lesson is simple: better policy, stronger compliance, and smarter administration will always deliver more sustainable revenue than higher taxes.”

     

    How Publican AI Transforms Port Operations

    Before the deployment of AI-based verification, customs collections faced significant shortfalls caused by under-declaration of cargo, fraudulent misclassification using Harmonised System (HS) codes, and manual inspection bottlenecks at entry points such as Tema Port.

    The Publican AI system addresses these vulnerabilities by cross-referencing global supply chain data, historical trade trends, and live market pricing to flag suspicious shipments automatically. High-risk containers are flagged for targeted inspection, while compliant consignments move rapidly through automated clearings.

    To consolidate these gains, the Ministry of Finance has also recentralized the Customs Technical Services Bureau (CTSB) into a single-window valuation node and restricted the transit of sensitive goods via land borders to direct port processing.

    Broader Macroeconomic Impact

    The $300 million revenue uplift forms part of a wider macroeconomic recovery outlined in the 2026 mid-year review. Real GDP growth reached 6.0% in the first half of the year, outperforming the initial target of 4.8%, while inflation dropped to 5.3%.

    Key drivers cited in the budget report included:

    ● Gross International Reserves: Reached five months of import cover, supported by $15 billion in foreign exchange inflows generated through the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) initiative.

    ● Debt Servicing Savings: Reduced interest payment overheads amounting to over GH¢15 billion due to exchange rate stabilization.

    ● Expenditure Control: Total first-half expenditure stood at GH¢143.7 billion (47.5% of the annual budget), keeping the overall fiscal deficit within target parameters.

    Parliamentary leaders praised the port technology results, with the Majority side hailing the integration of AI as a turning point for domestic revenue mobilization and institutional transparency in Ghana’s trade ecosystem.

     

  • From the emergency room to the wellness centre — but whose bill is it?

    From the emergency room to the wellness centre — but whose bill is it?

    By The Kasoa Economist

    There is a particular satisfaction that comes from watching a patient discharged from intensive care. Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, presenting Ghana’s 2026 Mid-Year Budget Review on Thursday, reached for exactly that image. The economy, he told Parliament, has moved “from the emergency room to the wellness centre.” It is a good line, and largely an honest one. It is also, like most lines a finance minister delivers with an election cycle somewhere on the horizon, one that deserves rather more scrutiny than applause.

     

    Start with what is genuinely impressive. Ghana’s economy has crossed $100bn in size for the first time, with real GDP growth of 6.0% in 2025, the fastest since 2019. Non-oil GDP, arguably the more honest measure of underlying health, expanded 7.6%, its best showing in fourteen years. For the evidence, the minister argued, that the recovery is not simply another commodity windfall dressed up as reform. Per capita income rose from $2,527 to $3,385 in a single year. Inflation has come down to 5.4%, comfortably inside the central bank’s target band. The government says it has already hit its statutory debt target of 45% of GDP, ahead of schedule. On paper, this is about as good a scorecard as a finance minister could ask to present.

    Then there is the announcement that will please fiscal hawks and irritate spending ministries in equal measure: no supplementary budget. “Mr Speaker, today I am not here to seek supplementary estimates,” Dr Forson told the House, promising instead to “realign” spending within the appropriations Parliament already approved. In a country whose fiscal history is littered with mid-year top-ups that quietly become the new baseline, a minister who declines to ask for more money is doing something almost countercultural. It should be noted, and applauded, on those terms alone.

    But note the framing, too. “Realignment” is a word that does a great deal of work without committing to very much. It allows a minister to claim discipline while still finding room. Later in the speech, to reject accusations that the government has been stingy, he pointed to GH¢48.8bn paid in public-sector compensation, GH¢21.5bn in interest obligations, $700m in Eurobond debt service, and GH¢10bn returned to domestic bondholders. These are not small numbers, and they suggest an administration still very much preoccupied with honouring the deals it made to exit default, rather than one free to spend as it pleases. The rhetorical trick of the speech was to use the same set of expenditure figures to answer two different critics: to the Minority, who accused the government of hoarding cash, the numbers prove generosity; to markets and the IMF, the same numbers prove restraint. Both cannot be the primary story.

    The minister was also careful to attribute the turnaround to “disciplined economic management rather than higher taxes”, tighter expenditure controls, modernised tax administration, reforms aimed at inflation targeting and exchange-rate stability. This is the more defensible claim, and probably the more important one. A recovery built on tax compliance and administrative reform is more durable than one built on a single good harvest or a lucky run in gold prices. Ghana’s finance ministers have a long history of discovering fiscal religion in the depths of a crisis and losing it the moment the numbers turn. What would be genuinely notable, more notable than any single indicator in Thursday’s speech, is if this government kept its reformist instincts once headline growth no longer requires them.

    There is a version of this review that reads as vindication of three punishing years of adjustment, and Dr Forson is right that Ghanaians, not the government, paid that price. His acknowledgment of that, pensioners absorbing cuts, businesses swallowing higher costs, households enduring a currency collapse and a debt exchange, was the most honest part of the speech, and the one line that deserved the applause it likely got. But an economy that has just crossed $100bn and posted its fastest growth in years is also an economy entering the part of the cycle where the temptation to loosen returns. The government’s insistence that it will not need supplementary estimates is a promise that costs nothing to make in July and everything to keep in November, when election-year politics start pressing on every finance ministry in the world, not just Ghana’s.

    None of this diminishes what has genuinely been achieved. A country that restructured its debt less than three years ago and is now debating the composition of a $100bn economy, rather than the terms of its next IMF review, has earned the right to a good news day. The test, as ever, is not what a minister says when the numbers are working in his favour. It is what he does in the two quarters after this speech, when the harvest effect on inflation fades, when cocoa prices stay soft, and when every backbencher in his own party starts asking why “realignment” cannot stretch to their constituency. Ghana has proved, convincingly, that it can take its medicine. The next test is whether it can stay off the diet once it starts to feel well again.

     

  • Foundation of the economy is “SOLID” — Ato Forson tells Parliament

    Foundation of the economy is “SOLID” — Ato Forson tells Parliament

    By Adnan Adams Mohammed

     

    Ghana’s economic foundations are now firmly in place, with key performance indicators outperforming full-year targets as the nation prepares to officially wrap up its IMF Extended Credit Facility (ECF) program, Minister for Finance Dr Cassiel Ato Forson has informed Parliament.

    Delivering the Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review on the floor of the House, Dr Forson declared that the macroeconomic stability achieved over the past 18 months proves the foundation of the economy is “solid,” paving the way for sustainable, long-term growth under the leadership of President John Dramani Mahama.

    Speaking directly to the nation, the Finance Minister highlighted how fiscal discipline has begun translating into real relief for everyday Ghanaians.

    “Mr. Speaker, I now wish to speak directly to every Ghanaian listening to me this afternoon,” Dr Forson stated. “To the market trader whose purchasing power has improved because inflation has fallen. To the entrepreneur who can now borrow at lower interest rates to expand their businesses, and to the worker whose income now stretches further because the cedi has stabilized. These improvements are not abstract statistics; they are the dividend of sound and competent economic management.”

     

    Acknowledging the hardships endured throughout the stabilization process, Dr Forson expressed appreciation for the sacrifices made by citizens while assuring the House of a brighter economic trajectory.

    “We recognize that the sacrifices required to restore the economy were significant, and that many households continue to face challenges,” he noted. “But we also know that the foundations of Ghana’s economy are now firmly in place… Under the leadership of His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama, Ghana is not going back; Ghana is moving forward.”

     

    Exit from Bailout Program and Transition to PCI

    A major focus of the Minister’s address was the impending conclusion of Ghana’s IMF bailout program and the strategic move toward a non-financing arrangement.

    “My Honorable Speaker, next week the Executive Board of the IMF is expected to approve the final review of Ghana’s extended credit facility program, bringing to a successful conclusion the financial bailout program,” Dr Forson announced.

     

    To anchor upcoming structural reforms without relying on fund debt, the government will transition to a 36-month Policy Coordination Instrument (PCI).

    “The Executive Board is also expected to approve a 36-month policy coordination instrument, a non-financing arrangement designed for countries that no longer have and are not expected to face balance-of-payment needs,” the Minister explained. “The PCI will anchor our next phase of reforms: strengthening macroeconomic resilience, supporting broad-based growth, and signaling our unwavering commitment to sound and disciplined macroeconomic policy.”

     

    The PCI framework focuses on six key pillars: fiscal consolidation, debt sustainability, governance, monetary and exchange rate frameworks, financial sector stability, and economic diversification. The program includes quantitative goals and 26 reform targets evaluated through semiannual reviews.

    H1 2026 Macroeconomic Highlights

    Presenting the performance metrics for the first half of 2026, Dr Forson presented figures indicating that major macroeconomic targets had been comfortably surpassed:

     

    Macroeconomic Indicator Target (Full Year 2026) Performance (H1 2026)

    Overall GDP Growth 4.8% 6.4% (Q1)

    Non-Oil GDP Growth 4.9% 6.3% (Q1)

    Headline Inflation 8.0% (±1%) 5.3% (June)

    Primary Surplus 1.5% of GDP 0.9% of GDP (On track)

     

    “Mr. Speaker, Ghana has not merely met its first-half year targets; it has exceeded them,” Dr Forson declared. “Overall GDP growth was 6.4% in the first quarter of 2026, well ahead of the 4.8% full-year target… Inflation has more than halved, falling from 13.7% in June 2025 to 5.3% by end of June 2026.”

     

    Concluding his presentation, Dr Forson reiterated that government reforms under the PCI will help restore Ghana’s investment-grade rating and unlock concessional financing for essential public infrastructure.

     

  • Growing Beyond Stabilisation: Ghana’s new economic agenda as expected in mid-year budget

    Growing Beyond Stabilisation: Ghana’s new economic agenda as expected in mid-year budget

    By Adnan Adams Mohammed

     

    In what is being positioned as a decisive turning point for Ghana’s economy, the Minister for Finance, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, is scheduled to present the 2026 Mid-Year Budget Review to Parliament on Thursday, July 23, 2026.

    The presentation will mark a major shift in the economic management of the Mahama administration. Following months of strict fiscal consolidation, the government is ready to transition from defensive stabilisation measures to an aggressive, productivity-driven growth strategy designed to directly impact jobs and standard of living.

    Locking in the Gains of the Economic “Reset”

    The mid-year review is presented in accordance with Section 28 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921), comes on the heels of better-than-expected macroeconomic performance in the first half of the year. Inflation has continued a steady downward trajectory, food inflation has plunged significantly, and the standard VAT rate reduction from 21.9% to a flat 20% has provided breathing room for local markets.

    Speaking ahead of the presentation, a senior economic analyst at the Ministry of Finance explained that the initial stabilization groundwork has been fully laid:

    “The era of stopping the economic bleeding is behind us. Having achieved a highly predictable macroeconomic environment in the first half of the year, Dr. Ato Forson’s presentation on July 23 will focus on unlocking the country’s productive capacity. This is about pivoting from basic stability to visible, tangible expansion.”

     

    What Is on the Horizon?

    The mid-year review is expected to offer crucial updates on several key policy initiatives, including:

    ● The IMF Transition: The planned transition from the IMF’s Extended Credit Facility (ECF) to the Policy Coordination Instrument (PCI).

    ● Debt Restructuring: Progress on external debt negotiations and updated debt sustainability metrics.

    ● Strategic Investments: Funding updates for major pillars like the “24-Hour Economy” and “Big Push” infrastructure projects.

    Lawmakers in Parliament are anticipating a highly detailed presentation. Reflecting on the significance of the July 23 sitting, a member of the parliamentary Finance Committee observed:

    “The business community is looking for policy predictability. We want to see how the fiscal discipline of the last six months translates into structural support for local industries and small enterprises. The Minister has been very disciplined with public spending, and now we want to see the blueprint for accelerated growth.”

     

    A Discipline-First Growth Framework

    Despite the shift toward expansion, Ministry officials maintain that the transition will not trigger reckless public spending. The government remains legally anchored to a strict target of a 1.5% primary surplus, a cap reinforced by the newly established independent Value for Money Office.

    Dr. Ato Forson has previously defended this dual approach of holding the line on discipline while pursuing development, stating:

    “Macroeconomic stability is not an end in itself; it is the foundation upon which we build jobs, attract investments, and drive industrialisation. But as we pivot to growth, our commitment to keeping the integrity of public finances sacred remains absolute.”

     

    With consultations with Cabinet concluding this week, all eyes will be on the floor of Parliament next Thursday as Dr. Ato Forson outlines the financial roadmap for the rest of the fiscal year.

     

  • Goosie Tanoh Rules Out Bid for NDC National Chairmanship

    Goosie Tanoh Rules Out Bid for NDC National Chairmanship

    Hon. Augustus “Goosie” Obuadum Tanoh has dismissed reports linking him to a possible bid for the National Chairmanship of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), describing calls for him to contest as inconsistent with his intentions.

    In a statement issued by a group calling itself the Concerned Supporters of Hon. Augustus “Goosie” Obuadum Tanoh, the supporters said a campaign circulating in the media and across social media platforms does not have Mr. Tanoh’s backing.

     

    “Our attention has been drawn to a statement circulating in the media and on social media purporting to represent a coalition of NDC grassroots members calling on Hon. Augustus “Goosie” Obuadum Tanoh to contest for the position of National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).”

    The statement urged party members and the public to disregard the reports, alleging that the campaign is being driven by persons with undisclosed motives.

    “We wish to state, in the strongest possible terms, that this call does not reflect the position, aspirations, or intentions of Hon. Goosie Tanoh. We believe this campaign is being orchestrated by interests known to us for reasons best known to them. We therefore urge party members and the general public to treat such publications with the caution they deserve.”

    According to the supporters, Mr. Tanoh has no interest in contesting for the party’s highest executive position and remains focused on his responsibilities as head of the 24-Hour Economy Authority.

    “For the avoidance of doubt, Hon. Augustus “Goosie” Obuadum Tanoh has no intention whatsoever of contesting for the National Chairmanship of the NDC. His current focus is on the enormous responsibility entrusted to him in ensuring the successful implementation of the Government’s 24-Hour Economy agenda through the 24-Hour Economy Authority. This national assignment requires his full attention, commitment, and expertise.”

    They maintained that his priority is the successful implementation of the government’s flagship 24-Hour Economy programme, which is expected to drive employment, boost productivity and accelerate industrialisation.

    “At this crucial stage of Ghana’s economic transformation, Hon. Goosie Tanoh remains fully dedicated to delivering on the mandate of the Authority to create sustainable jobs, promote productivity, stimulate industrial growth, and contribute meaningfully to national development. His priority is to ensure that the vision of the 24-Hour Economy becomes a practical reality for the benefit of all Ghanaians.”

    The statement also appealed to the Minister for Finance, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, to facilitate the release of funds allocated to the Authority, arguing that the resources are needed to support its operations.

    “We also wish to take this opportunity to respectfully appeal to the Minister for Finance, Hon. Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, to facilitate the release of the budgetary allocation of GH¢1.4 million earmarked for the operational activities of the 24-Hour Economy Authority. The timely release of these funds will enable the Authority to function effectively and efficiently in executing this important national mandate.”

    The supporters further called on members of the NDC to concentrate on promoting party cohesion and supporting the government’s development agenda rather than speculating about individuals who have not declared any intention to seek party office.

    “Finally, we call on all members of the National Democratic Congress to remain focused on strengthening the unity of the party and supporting the government’s development agenda rather than engaging in unnecessary speculation about individuals who have neither declared nor expressed any interest in party positions.”

    Reaffirming Mr. Tanoh’s commitment to his current role, the statement concluded:

    “Hon. Goosie Tanoh remains committed to serving Ghana and the NDC with dedication, integrity, and loyalty in the role currently assigned to him.”

    The statement was signed by IBM Phoyon on behalf of the Concerned Supporters of Hon. Augustus “Goosie” Obuadum Tanoh.