The Member of Parliament for Damongo, Hon. Lawyer Samuel Abu Jinapor, has criticised the mid-year budget review presented last Thursday by the Finance Minister Dr. Caisel Atto Forson, describing it as a failure to confront the two most pressing challenges facing the country, unemployment and the high cost of living.
Speaking to the press, Hon. Jinapor said the Finance Minister’s statement was largely a repetition of the budget he read in November 2025, with several commitments repeated almost word for word, particularly on the Women’s Development Bank, oil palm development, and industrialisation. He noted that the 24-hour economy, a flagship policy, was barely mentioned this time round.
He said the country expected the Finance Minister to use the mid-year review, as required under the Public Financial Management Act, to account for how far implementation of the 2025 budget had progressed. Instead, he said, that accountability was missing.
According to Hon. Jinapor, the 2025 budget’s implementation has stalled. He cited figures showing that of the 90 billion cedis in planned expenditure projected for the first quarter of 2026, only 60 billion cedis was actually spent, representing a shortfall of almost 30 percent. He described this as the worst budget performance since 2016, adding that the Ghana Statistical Service’s own figures confirm the gap between estimated and actual expenditure.
He argued that this shortfall in government spending is the root cause of hardship being felt across the country, including complaints about the lack of money in people’s pockets, liquidity challenges, unemployment, and an unbearable cost of living.
While acknowledging the importance of macroeconomic indicators such as inflation, growth rates, and the debt-to-GDP ratio, Hon. Jinapor said these statistics mean little if they are not translated into real improvements in people’s lives, since government expenditure directly affects ordinary Ghanaians. He expressed concern that the Finance Minister had openly stated a lack of interest in spending, describing this as problematic.
He called on the Finance Ministry to improve its performance, increase expenditure, spur growth, and take concrete steps to address unemployment and reduce the cost of living.
