14/11/2025
The Ato Forson Effect has once again reminded the nation that budgets are not ceremonies, but crossroads. He speaks in figures and forecasts, and the nation nods. Some nod out of hope, others out of confusion, and far too many out of quiet resignation. Budgets speak a language the ordinary Ghanaian is never taught, yet it is the ordinary Ghanaian who pays for every line, every promise, every decimal. So what does the 2026 Budget really mean? Not to the economists. Not to the political choir. But to the woman selling roasted plantain at Achimota, the mason pacing for work at Kasoa, the nurse on night shift at Tamale Teaching Hospital, and the young entrepreneur chasing a loan at Adum. So let’s cut to the core.
Government celebrates inflation falling to eight percent, the lowest in four years. That is not just a statistic. It means your rice, gari, milk, cooking oil, trotro fare will rise slowly, not violently. Last year, prices rose like they were angry with us. Today, they rise like they are tired. It is a relief, but not redemption. Sufaiya will still negotiate for tomatoes every Saturday, but she will no longer fear that the price will double by the next market day. The storm has calmed, not passed.
Government projects four point eight percent growth and talks boldly of jobs. Infrastructure, agriculture, and the 24-hour economy are powerful engines if they start, run, and do not suffer the familiar Ghanaian disease of talk plenty and do small. Kofi the mason will only work if the thirty billion cedi Big Push actually begins, if contractors do not take mobilisation and vanish, if payments do not delay, and if politics does not choke procurement. We have seen this movie before. We are praying for a new ending.
The budget allocates thirty-three point three billion cedis to education and one point one billion cedis to ending the double-track system. The hope is clear. Children should not be learning in shifts like factory workers. If the thirty abandoned E-Blocks are completed and forty SHSs upgraded as promised, a teenager somewhere will finally step into a classroom at seven thirty in the morning, not eleven. But this is Ghana. We must ask which contractors, which timelines, which supervision, which accountability.
The health sector receives nine billion cedis for NHIS, essential medicines, vaccines, and the daily machinery of health delivery. An additional two point three billion cedis goes to MahamaCares, a relief fund for chronic illnesses. To the ordinary Ghanaian, this means your mother’s hypertension drugs may not disappear from NHIS shelves. This means Kafui’s weekly diabetes expense may fall. This means simple medicines may not require pleading with a pharmacist. But it also means we must keep our eyes on the gatekeepers whose appetite for procurement deals can swallow entire allocations. A budget is good. A system is not. And budgets do not fix systems, people do.
Government admits Ghana inherited one point four billion dollars in energy debt. It promises three hundred and forty-five million dollars in payments to IPPs and more than fifteen billion cedis to cover shortfalls. If government pays on time, Nii’s cold store will not lose frozen fish to another quiet return of dumsor. If ECG reforms are real and consistent, the prepaid meter will not misbehave. But if arrears build again, if theft continues, and if ECG fails to clean its books, Ghana will slide back into the darkness everyone fears.
The budget also aims for a primary surplus of one point five percent. Ghana is budgeting like a parent who has learned from past waste and now wants to repay debt, not impress neighbours. This means less political spraying of money, fewer unnecessary committees, no overhiring into ministries, and stricter ceilings for MDAs. Some will be disappointed. But Ghana must save to survive.
Small businesses finally get breathing space. The VAT threshold rises from two hundred thousand cedis to seven hundred and fifty thousand cedis. The VAT rate reduces. Some levies disappear. Kukua the baker who makes four hundred thousand cedis a year no longer needs to file VAT. She saves time, avoids penalties, and sells cheaper bread. This is smart economics that frees the small to build the big. But again, this only works if GRA stops harassing entrepreneurs with needless demands.
Domestic borrowing will hit seventy-one billion cedis. Banks love lending to government. It is safe, guaranteed, and effortless. So when Kofi presents a business plan for a poultry expansion, the bank may simply say its liquidity has been taken up. The private sector may struggle for air if government consumes too much oxygen.
The Big Push infrastructure plan can transform Ghana or become a monument to waste. Thirty billion cedis is enough to reshape roads, hospitals, rails, water systems, and energy lines. Done well, Ghana becomes modern. Done badly, Ghana becomes a museum of abandoned projects. A budget is not transformation. Ex*****on is. And Ghana has always excelled at writing budgets and failed at executing them.
This is the heart of it. The 2026 Budget is disciplined and sensible. It is not reckless, not wasteful, and not disconnected from reality. It is a plan to rebuild a country that has limped out of turbulence. But the danger is not in the numbers. The danger is in the people who will implement those numbers: the procurement mafias, the agency gatekeepers, the contract chasers, the public servants who treat state money as family inheritance. If Ghana is to rise, the budget must be protected from Ghana’s worst habits. A good budget is like good seed. If you plant it in fertile soil, it grows. If you plant it in corruption, incompetence, or political interference, it dies.
This is where citizens matter. The Budget belongs to us. Not the Ministers, not Parliament, not the technocrats. Our role is simple. Watch them. Question them. Interrogate them. Demand delivery, not drama. Demand projects, not promises. If they overspend, ask why. If they underspend, ask why. If they delay, ask who benefits. If they hide, ask what they fear. The budget can reset Ghana, but only if Ghanaians reset their vigilance.
In a country where hope has been taxed for too long, the budget is not the victory. Our vigilance is.
Kay Codjoe
Copied
