Ghana plans to reduce fiscal savings to create jobs
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on MyJoyOnline
Ghanaian Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson backs reducing fiscal savings in 2027 to fund job creation. The country recorded a primary surplus of 2.5% of GDP in 2025, against 1.5% planned, according to Cassiel Ato Forson.
Ghana plans to reduce its primary budget surplus in 2027 to create room to invest in job creation, Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson said on Thursday after presenting the 2027 budget to Parliament. Ghana recorded a primary surplus of 2.5% of gross domestic product in 2025, against a 1.5% target set by Parliament, a one-percentage-point difference in GDP, according to the minister.
Cassiel Ato Forson said taking back this percentage point of GDP in 2027 would not harm the economy. He presented the previous fiscal discipline as a step that had helped stabilise the economy in two years, compared with a period he estimated could have reached 10 years without these measures.
The minister now wants to focus Ghana’s economic policy on youth employment. He estimates that 1.34 million young Ghanaians are not working, studying or undergoing training, a population referred to by the acronym NEET. Without intervention, this number could reach about 1.7 million over the next four years, he warned.
The government’s "New Economy" approach should target structural changes and investment in eight sectors where the government believes jobs can be created, according to Cassiel Ato Forson. The minister had already presented this economic framework for the 2027 budget on 31 July.
