Full text: Minority's response to 2026 Budget and Policy Statement
Source: myjoyonline

Ladies and gentlemen of the press fraternity, good morning. We have invited you to present our preliminary position on the 2026 Budget and Policy Statement of the government presented in Parliament yesterday. This is the second annual budget of the NDC Government. We were expecting that this budget will deliver hope and positive direction to our economy following a year of inactivity. Unfortunately, it is another budget used to apportion blame to the NPP Government, and thus neglecting the responsibility of the NDC government to the people of Ghana. As a responsible minority, we have chosen to present a constructive alternative view to the budget which was more or less another litany of initiatives they do not intend to implement. Gradually, the people of Ghana will come to terms with this government’s mastery of propagating empty slogans and yet delivering nothing. The 2026 Budget is presented under the theme “Resetting for Growth, Jobs and Economic Transformation.” It builds on recent macroeconomic stability which began under the NPP government. The trajectory for a return to single-digit inflation, improved reserves, and early signs of recovery in non-oil GDP was expected and known a year ago due to the policies the previous NPP Government implemented. As we have said in the past, the NDC has not initiated any new strategic policy to drive these developments. They have simply stuck to script developed by the NPP with the IMF two years ago when we negotiated the ECF programme The central proposition of the Budget is that Ghana is now transitioning from stabilisation to a “Big Push” of investments that will drive jobs, exports, energy security, and socio-economic transformation. While the Government highlights recent stabilisation gains, a close examination of the Budget numbers reveals concerns that must be brought to the attention of the Ghanaian public. Stabilisation is not transformation. Real economic transformation requires strong productive investment, credible financing, improved energy reliability, and a vibrant private sector. The 2026 Budget does not yet provide the scale or structure of investment needed to shift Ghana from short-term stabilisation to long-term, productivity-led growth. This statement provides a clear, fact-based assessment of the 2026 Budget’s realism, risks, and implications for growth, jobs, and fiscal credibility. The Illusion of Fiscal Discipline The NDC Government (the Minister for Finance) has hailed Ghana’s 2025 fiscal outturn as evidence of prudence and consolidation. Yet behind this narrative lies a deeper problem: the systematic under-execution of growth-enhancing public investment. Parliament approved capital spending equivalent to 1.5% of GDP, but the government implemented only about 0.5% year-to-date. Even this, we can challenge it as it may have been inflated. But for a government that seems to want to shift the fortunes of Ghanaians with its so-called “Big Push”, this is heartbreaking. This 1-percentage-point gap, nearly US$1.1 billion in foregone public investment, was not a product of efficiency savings. It reflected cash rationing, auction shortfalls, and mounting debt service pressures (in levels). In reality, the Minister’s approach to fiscal management is not disciplined; it is reactive, relying on short-term cuts to maintain the appearance of order, and this is very dangerous for our medium-to-long-term development. Using Ghana’s macroeconomic parameters and IMF-consistent multipliers, you will clearly understand the cost of the damage: - Effective demand cut: 0.514 % of GDP - GDP impact: circa 0.41 % of GDP (≈ US$469 million) - Revenue loss: circa US$75 million - Forgone potential growth: circa 0.1 percentage point annually. The government has effectively traded tomorrow’s output for today’s optics. Every 1 percentage-point cut in public investment means thousands of construction and supply-chain jobs not created, roads and schools not completed, and private contractors pushed into arrears. Short-term fiscal “savings” thus translate into higher unemployment, weaker SMEs, and slower future tax growth. Real GDP grew by 6.3% year-on-year in the first half of 2025, yet the composition of this growth is telling. The recent 6.3% growth is services-heavy, led by ICT, finance, and trade, while construction and manufacturing lag. The government is not building the economy’s productive base. Banks, meanwhile, are crowded out by government borrowing at the short end, preferring T-bills over long-term lending, deepening the cycle of high interest, low investment, and low job creation. Since this administration came into office, budgets have been presented in this August House but not implemented (2025 Budget and the Mid-year Budget). Allocations for capital expenditure and goods and services remain unreleased, and workers across the public sector are paid, but not given the necessary tools and inputs to work. Some Ministries do to have basic things and are unable to provide fuel for government work. This is true fiscal indiscipline. A close look at the data presented in the 2026 Budget confirmed the fear by the minority earlier this year that this government was incapable of implementing the programmes they presented in the 2025 Budget. For example: Goods and Services – The government programmed to spend GHS5.1 billion from Q1 to Q3, but ended up spending only GHS3.8 billion. This compares to the annual allocation of GHS6.7 billion. The amount released for goods and services is 56% of the total allocation for the year. CAPEX – The programmed CAPEX for Q1-Q3 was GHS26.6 billion, but the actual release was just GHS11 billion. This is 34% of the total CAPEX of GHS32.6 billion allocated for the year 2025. The more concerning from these developments is the systematic and deliberate under-execution of growth-enhancing public investment. The under-execution of capital projects is also a mirror of fiscal fragility including: - Revenue pressures because persistent shortfalls have eroded space for discretionary spending. - Financing constraints because frequent auction under-subscriptions have forced reliance on short-term T-bills, raising rollover risk, and - Rising interest costs because a growing share of revenue is locked into debt service, crowding out the growth expenditures. By cutting investment to meet short-term cash targets, the government is treating liquidity symptoms rather than addressing structural weaknesses in revenue and debt management. Public investment has one of the highest employment multipliers in Ghana’s economy. Construction and engineering absorb large numbers of semi-skilled workers and drive demand for cement, steel, and transport services. When capital projects stall, contractor arrears accumulate, SME liquidity tightens, and bank non-performing loans creep upward. The short-term fiscal saving thus creates medium-term job and credit losses. The Government has effectively chosen accounting aesthetics over economic substance, with a finance minister who has weaponised underspending as a tool of false prudence. By systematically failing to release funds for approved projects, the Minister is creating artificial savings that mask his inability to mobilise revenue or manage debt sustainably. This is not fiscal discipline; it is fiscal deception. Is it not curious that the much-talked-about “Nkoko-Nkitinkiti” was just launched this week in spite of the fact that the 2025 budget provisioned for it since March 2025, a clear example of how the government is struggling to implement its priority programmes. And let me use this opportunity to caution that the harmattan season has just started in some parts of the country, and we don’t want stories later that the chicks have been killed by the Harmattan. Timing is of utmost importance when you are implementing a programme. Also, the National Coders programme, which was not implemented, has found yet another space in the 2026 Budget with an equivalent GHS100 million allocated to it similar to last year. Road contractors, businesses and other providers of government services are suffering from this Minister’s self-created liquidity drought while his officials celebrate restraint. In time, the actual impact of the policies employed during this Minister’s “honeymoon period” will hit all of us. Growth without Jobs, Depth or Structural Transformation The current administration secured the mandate of Ghanaians on the back of lofty pledges to transform the economic paradigm of our beloved nation. Yet, unfortunately, those promises have not materialised. You remember the 24-hour economy the government launched was said to be a job creation policy with a “homegrown formula”. They told us 1-3-3 (One Job, Three People, Three Shifts). What happened?. Today, the 24-hour economy policy is a confusing mix of policy ideas with no clear implementation arrangements. The same youth who were told they would have shifts to work once this government comes to power continue to roam the streets without work, while farmers and traders complain of poor sales due to weak demand. The 24H Economy programme is estimated to cost US$4 billion of which the government is expected to contribute between US$300 – US$400 million. We are going into the second year since the programme was launched, yet the government failed to announce in the 2026 Budget the targeted tax incentives and rebates it promised to attract investment. The allocation of GHS90 million to the 24H Economy (the Minister said GHS110 million) of which GHS70 million is for Goods and services and GHS20 million for CAPEX, can best be described as tokenism, given that the programme is the main development blueprint of the government. This cannot help achieve the programme objectives of creating a 1-3-3 job model. On another note, the Big Push, which was promised GH¢13 billion for implementation by the government, had, by July, been issued commitments authorisation of only GH¢7.6 billion. It is yet to be seen how much they have actually disbursed under the programme as the year draws to the end. Will Ghanaians therefore believe the President and the Minister for allocating GHS30 billion for Big Push in the 2026 Budget when they could not even release funds allocated for the Big Push in the 2025 Budget? Surprisingly, in his usual excitement, the Minister indicated at paragraph 1183 of the Budget Statement, “The GHS63 billion road contracts awarded so far under the Big Push, will generate an estimated 490,000 jobs”. How is the government able to award road contracts under the Big Push amounting to GHS63 billion, when the total allocation for 2025 was GHS13 billion? These 490,000 jobs promised from the Big-Push are dead on arrival as there are no contracts worth GHS63 billion under the Big Push any where in Ghana. Even if you were to add the total allocation for the 2025 and 2026 for the Big Push, it would amount to GHS43 billion, far less than the GHS63 billion stated. This is how this government is manufacturing success stories for itself. Even if this is true, the Honourable Minister for Finance would have violated the Public Financial Management Act, which frowns on awarding contracts without budget allocation or commitment authorisation by the Minister. The promised “Big Push” for jobs and infrastructure is therefore not reflected in the numbers. Despite the strong rhetoric, capital expenditure in the Budget for 2026 is only 3.6% of GDP—far below what is required for a genuine infrastructure-led transformation. At the same time: - Wages: 5.7% of GDP - Interest payments: 3.6% of GDP - Statutory transfers: about 4% of GDP These rigid items consume more than two-thirds of total spending, leaving very limited room for transformative investments. In reality, this 2026 Budget is not investment-driven and masks serious challenges. It also shows that there is no structural shift as the composition of the budget remains the same. We urge Ghanaians to seriously manage expectations as we are in for another year of disappointment. The high domestic borrowing will crowd out credit to the Private Sector. The overall deficit on cash basis is 4% of GDP, and the Government plans to borrow 4.4% of GDP from the domestic market. With banks already heavily exposed to government securities, increased domestic borrowing will: - Reduce access to credit for SMEs, - Maintain high domestic interest rates, and - Undermine job creation and private sector expansion. This contradicts the stated ambition of a jobs and export-focused recovery. The capital spending cuts also produced a superficial improvement in the current account: - Direct import compression: circa 0.13 % of GDP - Income-induced import fall circa 0.12 % of GDP - Total current-account “gain” circa 0.25 % of GDP (US $287 million) But this is not a sign of external strength; it is demand suppression. A healthier balance would arise from export expansion, not from stalled construction and idle capital budgets. There is also the case of the Goldbod. In the 2025 Budget, the government allocated US$279 million to Goldbod to purchase gold. Till date, this amount has not been disbursed. Rather, the Bank of Ghana has been pre-financing Goldbod’s purchases of gold, including purchases of gold from galamsey operators. The Bank of Ghana must come clear how much money it has printed to finance Goldbod. This is important because it amounts to Central Bank financing of the government, a practice frowned upon by Ghana’s programme with the IMF. The government’s own inability to properly implement any policies beyond short-term cost-cutting has created a paradox: headline figures that appear respectable on paper, but an economy that feels stagnant and lifeless to ordinary citizens. The economy this government wants us to celebrate is a ticking time bomb that has let down the many young people who were promised jobs, let down the entrepreneurs who were promised opportunities, and let down the nation that was promised transformation. What we have is an economy stuck in low productivity, weak investment, and broken promises, with a Minister who has no original policy idea to tackle the underlying structural challenges that keep this economy operating below potential. Meanwhile, the critical productive sectors continue to lag significantly behind, deprived of the investment needed to catalyse their growth. This no doubt has compounded the government's inability to meet its revenue requirements. There is no way you can generate revenue from a growthless economy. You will recall during the 2025 Budget debate in Parliament, we told the Minister that the government’s revenue policies were unrealistic and they didn’t listen to us. The data in the 2026 budget has, however, vindicated our stand. Total revenue and grants as at the end of the 3 rd quarter was provisionally GHS154.9 billion against a programmed GHS162.6 billion for the same period, a shortfall of GHS7.7 billion. Similarly, domestic revenue for Q1-Q3 was GHS153.9 billion against programmed GHS160.7 billion, a shortfall of GHS6.8 billion; whilst tax revenue for the same period stood at GHS124.6 billion against programmed tax revenue of GHS133.5 billion, a significant shortfall of almost GHS9 billion. In his budget speech, the Minister lost the courage to admit for once that some of his expectations were not met. Particularly, revenue generation is one of the major components of the fiscal consolidation programme the government is implementing, and for its importance, the Minister should have been bold to concede that all is not well with the fiscal consolidation. This is why he had to forcefully underspend in productive sectors of the economy a practice he now calls fiscal discipline. Curiously, this year has been heavily associated with the sweeping of the accounts of various departments and agencies by the Minister including the District Assemblies Common Fund, a symptom of revenue failure, a phenomenon that made many government agencies not able to function during the year. It is not a crime to accept failure when the evidence is glaring, Mr. Minister. We must also note that the 2026 revenue measures are not realistic. The Government expects revenue and grants to rise to 16.8% of GDP, driven by an 18.8% increase in non-oil tax revenue. These targets rely heavily on compliance and digitalisation gains that historically materialise gradually. If revenues fall short, as we have seen in 2025, three outcomes are likely: - New taxes introduced mid-year, like we saw with the increase in petroleum taxes in 2025 - Accumulation of arrears, or - Cuts to capital and social programmes as they did in 2025. This revenue optimism may hide significant future fiscal stress which we need to closely monitor. The Catastrophic Collapse of Market Confidence The Minister also conveniently fails to mention the disastrous auction performance throughout 2025. Market participants have delivered a devastating verdict on the administration's economic management through their systematic avoidance of government securities. Out of 45 auctions conducted this year, an unprecedented 25 have failed outright, a failure rate exceeding 55% that reveals not just market scepticism but active rejection of government paper. Investors are voting with their feet and their capital, demonstrating a clear preference for short-term instruments over any long-term commitments to a government they no longer trust in just 10 months now since they assumed office. This pattern of auction failures has created a vicious cycle: each failed auction forces the government to rely more heavily on expensive short-term borrowing, which in turn increases rollover risk and further undermines investor confidence. The cumulative shortfalls of GH¢17.5 billion represent not just a financing gap but a vote of no confidence in the government's ability to manage the economy sustainably. The stock market's reaction during this budget presentation week provides additional damning evidence of this confidence crisis. This week, the GSE Composite Index fell by 0.69%. In comparison, the Financial Stocks Index dropped by 0.12%, a decline that occurred precisely when the market should have been rallying on the government’s supposedly positive economic news. This timing is no coincidence; it reflects sophisticated investors' assessment that the budget promises of this Government lack credibility and implementation capacity. When more than half of the auctions in a single year fail, it is not the market that is broken; it is the government's credibility that has collapsed. Banks and financial institutions, traditionally the backbone of domestic financing, are increasingly reluctant to extend credit to a government that cannot honour its commitments. This credit crunch cascades through the economy, starving productive sectors of necessary capital and perpetuating the cycle of economic stagnation. The Expensive and Unsustainable Illusion of Currency Stability Beyond this, the Bank of Ghana's approach to currency management reveals another dimension of the government's short-term thinking. Under the IMF programme's disciplined framework, foreign exchange interventions were prudently limited to a sustainable level that balanced market support with the preservation of reserves. During the NPP administration, the IMF restricted the Bank of Ghana from intervening in the forex market heavily. The intervention budget was fixed at US$80 million per month despite the international foreign reserves exceeding the IMF target. In fact, by the end of 2024, the reserves stood at almost US$9 billion. However, with these restrictions removed at the end of the year in 2024, the new Bank of Ghana management and the government when they came into office, started benefiting from the work they knew nothing about; and began to inject massive sums of forex into the market from the reserves that were accumulated before they came into government. The performance of the cedi is therefore not by any magic or policy intervention. It is due to the hard work under the NPP administration. This is the reason the Bank of Ghana did not want Ghanaians to know what they were doing, when the Governor announced that they were not intervening until the minority later confirmed by the IMF exposed the billions of Dollars they had injected into the market. So far they have injected roughly US$8 billion since January. Despite these burdensome and costly interventions, which have reduced the cedi's value from approximately GHS14 on 6 th January 2025 when the NPP left government, to almost GHS11 per dollar, the gains remain disappointingly modest and fundamentally unsustainable. With the significant billions of Dollars of interventions, we expected the rate to be at GHS8 to a Dollar. The market's muted response reveals a sophisticated understanding that currency strength cannot be purchased; it must be earned through sound economic fundamentals. Members of the Press, did it not prick your conscience when in touting the government management of the cedi, the Minister used the exchange rate for November 2024 of GHS16 to the dollar to show the unprecedented levels of the appreciation in our local currency, instead of the rate of GHS14 to the dollar on January 6 th , 2025, a day before they assumed office? This propaganda management of the economy is becoming far too much at best. Merely repeating an untruth does not make it the truth. It is important to note that this futile exercise of heavy market interventions have put stress on international reserves, while the core structural weaknesses i.e chronically low productivity, a natural forex surrender by exporters and anaemic export performance, remain completely unaddressed. Instead, these resources have been squandered on a temporary cosmetic improvement that will inevitably reverse once intervention capacity is exhausted. We only wish the Governor held a measured long-term view; instead, he appears more interested in grabbing headlines and projecting confidence in an economy that has not undergone any significant structural change under his tenure. It was therefore not surprising that this week the Bank of Ghana came to face the reality in spite of our earlier warning to them that the heavy interventions were not sustainable and would hurt the economy one day. The Bank of Ghana has now issued a new framework for the first time prepared with the IMF to guide its market intervention. For the first time, the Bank has admitted that the appreciation has mainly been due to market intervention. Additionally, the BOG has conceded that the approach to its market interventions was non-transparent and unsustainable, as it could jeopardise the reserves needed as buffer against international shocks if they continued with the huge interventions they did. Whilst it promises to continue to intervene to “dampen short-term volatility in the foreign exchange market, responding to disorderly conditions without undermining exchange rate flexibility," at least it wants to do it in a measured and transparent manner. More importantly, the Bank also concedes publicly for the first time, that it has been relying on the NPP’s Gold Purchase Program introduced by the former Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, under the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; and is now emphatic that the Gold Purchase Programme will continue to be the anchor of its foreign exchange policy, a fact the NDC and its supporters have denied consistently. If you have not heard this yet, let me quote the Bank of Ghana from the statement it issued this week. The “Bank of Ghana will intermediate FX flows in a market-neutral manner, using inflows from sources such as the Gold Purchase Programme, or other export surrender requirements”. VINDICATION THEY SAY IS IN THE WOMB OF TIME! BUT ON THE STREETS WE SAY GIVE TIME SOME TIME. Altogether, the government has chosen the appearance of stability over genuine economic strength. We saw this reflected in the recent negotiations with organised labour, where the government claimed victory over inflation and celebrated economic stabilisation. Yet, Ghanaian workers were robbed with another token increase in the base pay by 9% that fails to restore even a fraction of their lost purchasing power. You recall that the government increased the base pay for public employees for 2025 by 10%, a figure that was below inflation. Workers were asked to make sacrifices by his Excellency the President, and promised better salaries once things improved. Workers lost real income as a result of this. We were expecting that with the much-touted economic achievements announced by the Minister, Ghanaian workers would have been given a decent increase in the base pay for 2026 to enable them recover the real income lost this year. Sadly, they have been insulted with an even lower increase of 9%. This is notwithstanding the fact that prices of many basic goods have not moderated. Is this an admission that a year on, they have still not improved the said conditions? Or an admission that they have just been deceiving organised labour? Despite moderating headline inflation, prices of many essential goods and services remain stubbornly elevated, a phenomenon economists refer to as “downward price stickiness”. The cost of food, utilities, transportation, and basic household necessities continues to consume an ever-larger share of workers' salaries, and alarmingly, there is no long-term plan to address this issue by the ruling Government. Defining Real Fiscal Discipline: A Blueprint for Genuine Economic Management Ladies and Gentlemen, real fiscal discipline stands in stark contrast to the government's current approach, which involves opportunistic spending cuts and accounting manipulations. Genuine fiscal responsibility requires a comprehensive framework that balances immediate stability with long-term growth imperatives, and I have some recommendations of what reforms they need to implement: Full and transparent execution of Parliament-approved capital budgets, with quarterly reporting on project milestones and expenditure patterns Comprehensive broadening of the revenue base through progressive taxation and formalisation initiatives, reducing dangerous dependence on volatile short-term financing Strategic lengthening of domestic debt maturities to reduce rollover stress and create space for productive private sector credit Establishment and protection of a minimum capital-expenditure floor explicitly linked to verified project milestones and development outcomes Creation of transparent mechanisms for tracking and reporting on the economic impact of public investments, including job creation and revenue generation These reforms would stabilise the economy on a genuinely sustainable growth path, without masking fundamental liquidity problems as prudent management. The Inescapable Bottom Line: A Government Trading Tomorrow for Today Members of the press, by systematically under-spending the investment budget that Parliament approved, Ghana has made itself approximately US$469 million poorer in 2025 alone and permanently lost future growth capacity, creating an illusion of fiscal prudence built entirely on postponed progress and abandoned promises. The government has made a conscious choice to trade tomorrow's economic output for today's accounting optics, creating a growthless, jobless economy that has spectacularly failed to deliver on its core promises of transformation and prosperity. The current lower levels of inflation has rather imposed enormous strain on the people of Ghana because the government did not address inflation from the supply side. The demand side approach to inflation has ensured suppressed aggregate demand. The Bank of Ghana has admitted that as at August 2025, they had withdrawn GHS60 billion from the market to control inflation. This obviously comes at a cost whilst the withdrawal of liquidity has dried up the pockets of Ghanaians. Farmers across the nation – from Techiman to Tamale, Ho and many other parts of Ghana - cannot sell their produce as demand evaporates. Traders from Makola to Kejetia complain people are not buying their goods. In fact, let me remind traders across the country that this coming Christmas, if you don’t sell to your expectation, know that it is because the NDC government withdrew GHS60 billion from the market just to achieve a single-digit inflation and impoverish you. You are no more a matter of concern to this government; they have forgotten about you after getting power from you. That is why their priority has shifted to the use of the recent helicopter accident involving some of our gallant citizens as cover to procure 2 jets, 4 helicopters and 2 offshore patrol vessels. This is going to cost our country US$1.2 billion. Government must come clear why the purchase of 2 Executive Jets is a priority at the time it is asking Ghanaian workers to sacrifice more. As you know, lower aggregate demand derives down economic growth and creates unemployment. The economy is therefore growing below its potential. In the second quarter of 2025, the economy grew by 6.3%. This was less than the 7% growth in the same period in 2024. The government is praising itself for stabilising the economy, but real economic stability should engender economic growth. Why is this stability not generating growth is a matter the government must explain. How is it that when the economy has been stabilized, the government is projecting economic growth for 2026 at 4.8%, far lower than the 5.7% achieved in 2024 when the economy in the words of the Minister was “recklessly” managed? Another issue copiously covered in the 2026 Budget was the Minister’s assertion that they had brought Ghana from a high debt distress to moderate due to the reduction in the national debt. What he did not state in the budget were the reasons for achieving this. With the completion of almost 93% of eligible debts restructured in 2024 including 20 billion of domestic debt, US$13.1 billion in Eurobonds, and US$5.1 billion in bilateral creditors debt, Ghana was on its way to achieve sustainable debt levels. These debt restructuring successes have further been cited by all the rating agencies – Fitch, S&P and Moody’s as the main reason for the recent upgrades in Ghana’s credit ratings. This NDC government did not undertake these restructuring work. They were all achieved under the government of President Nana Akufo-Addo. The Minister has always found it very difficult to acknowledge this but these cannot be wished away. The NDC cannot even claim credit for the legislation of the independent fiscal council as well as the law capping public debt to 45% of GDP by 2034, which have been hailed as a mark of fiscal reforms. The bills on these matters were submitted to Parliament as part of the IMF programme requirement before the end of 2024, but the 8 th Parliament came to an end without considering them. What this government did was to re-submit the same content as amendment to the Public Financial Management Act, passed by Parliament this year. The claim for credit for these reforms is not surprising to us. The NDC government is characteristic of this. The renegotiation of the power contracts and the Lithium Agreement followed the same pattern of repackaging what the NPP did and turn around to want to take credit for them. The difference, however, is that, unlike the NPP, the government of the NDC in presenting these renegotiated contracts, seek to shortchange the people of Ghana. For example, we were to save US$1.5 billion when we renegotiated the power contracts and submitted the revised contracts to Parliament late last year. They are now celebrating a savings of between US$200 and US$300 million for renegotiating the contracts. Similarly, in the renegotiated Lithium Agreement, they have reduced the royalty rate from 10% negotiated by the previous NPP government to 5%. These are two cases of poor negotiations. Sadly, the loud silence of the Civil Society Organisations which were crying above their voices when the NPP was laying the lithium agreement in parliament with a royalty rate of 10%, make me wonder if we still have independent voices in Ghana. Not even the attempt to win the sympathy of the Ghanaian people by painting the NPP’s record of the energy sector as a failure can exonerate you. Your record on the energy sector in Ghana’s history is abysmal. The term dumsor is your other name and owes its existence to you because of your reckless management of the energy sector. Ghanaians cannot forget so soon. The announcement by the Minister that they came to meet US$1.4 billion debt in the energy sector owed to IPPs, only shows the impressive work of the previous NPP government as we inherited US$2.4 billion when we came into office in 2017. Even the US$1.4 billion the government put out was the result of the many unconscionable power contracts signed by the last NDC government which imposed take-or-pay obligations on our country which could not be accommodated in electricity tariffs as some of the power plants were surplus to our capacity requirement and were most of the time idle, hence the accumulated debts. Now they want Ghanaians to clap for them for potentially making savings of US$200 million from the renegotiations of the same contracts which exposed us to several billions of dollars in bills. Mr. Minister, do you really deserve our commendation for this? What remains a mystery for us is the insincerity of this government in the way they treats the people of Ghana. You remember, the VAT reforms announced in the Budget and seeking to decouple NHIS and GETFUND levies from VAT were first presented in the 2025 Budget, and which according to the Minister was to support businesses as it would remove distortions in VAT administration and lower the rates. The question we ask is why is this repeated in the 2026 Budget? Is it simply because the Government didn’t mean it when they put it in the 2025 Budget? When this government wants to increase taxes, it does it with meteoric speed. For example, when they wanted to increase the growth and sustainability levy on the mines, they got the bill passed in March. When they wanted to extend the import levy bill to 2028, they got the bill passed. When they wanted to increase the energy sector levy on petroleum products by GHS1 per liter of petroleum products, they got the bill passed under a certificate of urgency. So if it is about raising taxes, there is urgency in passing the bills. However, when it comes to the VAT reforms to support businesses, the Minister was too busy, as he failed to submit a bill for the amendments 9 months since the Minister announced the reforms. This government does not believe in its own policy, particularly when it comes to the business community. We are not surprised because we all know their antecedents – they are not business-friendly even if they change their colours many times. The Minister in this 2026 Budget Statement, churned out what he thinks are superior fiscal out-turns. We will wait for the actual fiscal outturn to determine the true fiscal position for 2025 and what methodology he will use for the treatment of arrears. You recall that in the 2024 fiscal framework which was presented by the Minister in March 2025, the government prepared a shopping list of arrears some dating back to 2022 and used it to manipulate the fiscal outturns. Events later have vindicated us when we accused him of data manipulation. Almost GHS18 billion of the arrears they put in the fiscal framework could not be validated by the Auditor General, yet this amount was part of the so-called arrears used in determining the primary balance. WHAT A DISHONEST GOVERNMENT! We are expecting the Minister to use the same methodology for determining the primary balances for 2025. What is worrying is that the IMF looked on whilst the Minister defied the methodology for deriving the primary balance negotiated in the Technical Memorandum of Understanding of the IMF. It is very sad that the IMF went to sleep. Members of the press, the state of the economy cannot be good as the Minister wants us to believe. It is indeed associated with empty pockets and vanishing customers, sophisticated investors actively avoiding government auctions, and ministries struggling to function as they have been starved of the basic resources needed to deliver services. The path forward demands more than cosmetic adjustments or rhetorical commitments. Ghana deserves genuine economic leadership, rather than broken promises; real fiscal discipline, rather than opportunistic austerity; and a government that delivers results, rather than excuses. For us to move forward, we must reject the false narrative that underspending equals prudence. Proper fiscal discipline means executing approved budgets transparently, and not underspending in productive sectors, but delivering precisely what was promised to the people of Ghana. In less than a year, the government's policy credibility is already under threat. The 1-3-3 economy that Ghanaians were sold risks being labelled 4-1-9 if the Government continues its current course. Not only the 24H Economy, but also the promise to establish a Women Development Bank in 2025 has become another 4-1-9, which has again found space in the 2026 Budget, another attempt to deceive the hardworking Ghanaian women. Only through credible policies, disciplined implementation, and transparent governance can we restore the confidence necessary to unlock Ghana's tremendous potential and deliver the prosperous future our nation deserves. The 2026 budget represented a critical test for the government to match its rhetoric with action, but the Government chose to present even more half-baked policy ideas packaged as transformative initiatives. As a result, we look set to endure another year of fiscal indiscipline, masked as prudence, despite the economic evidence demanding a change in approach. What we need is economic transformation which Ghanaians were promised, but what we see now is economic stagnation masquerading as progress. It is economic decline disguised as development, and the 2026 budget does not offer the hope that could take us out this. As we conclude, we will like to state that the structure of the 2026 Budget does not support the claim of a major shift toward jobs, productivity, and transformation: - Investment levels remain small. - Revenue projections are overly optimistic. - Borrowing pressures are high. - Key fiscal risks are under-discussed. - Flagship programmes lack transparency and costing. The lower GDP base and revenue shortfalls mechanically raise the debt-to-GDP ratio, even if the cash deficit narrows. In effect, Ghana is “consolidating” by shrinking the denominator of its debt ratio. True debt sustainability requires sustained growth and credible revenue mobilisation, not austerity that undermines both. Also, hidden financing pressures, have not been duly reflected. The government has faced several uncovered auctions this year and this is likely to be repeated next year. The BoG bills remain the attractive because they reflect the true interest rate that the market finds attractive and realistic and this competes with the government’s artificially managed T-bill auctions. SOE liabilities beyond cocoa and energy that are not fully quantified. Domestic debt rollover risks, given the short maturities of government securities as well as climate and disaster risks, which are not integrated into the macro-fiscal framework, pose further fiscal risks. Without addressing these risks, fiscal stability could be short-lived. Policies without clear budget risks are becoming slogans rather than deliverable programmes. Ghana needs a Budget that strengthens revenue realism, expands productive investment, protects fiscal credibility, and enables the private sector to lead job creation. Members of the press, at best, we can therefore describe the 2026 budget, the Galamsey Budget, as Growthless, Jobless and Minimalist Budget. It contains only cosmetic rhetorics presented by a crawling government. The people of Ghana must speak up for the government to know that the honeymoon period is over.