Francis – Institute for Fiscal Studies Ghana

January 5, 2022

The Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Assessment of the 2022 Budget

Ghana has been facing a very difficult fiscal situation for quite some time. Since 2012, the country has run large fiscal deficits, which have led to rapid debt build-up. The ratio of public debt to GDP, which stood at less than 29.1% in 2011, climbed swiftly to 55.6% in 2016. This led to a sharp increase in interest expenditure from 13.2% of total revenue and grants in 2011 to 35.8% in 2016.In 2017–2019, the officially declared budget deficit fell to an average of 4.4% of GDP from an average of 6.5% of GDP in 2013–2016. However, in addition to the […]

January 26, 2022

Assessment of Ghana’s 2022 budget – Institute for Fiscal studies

Ghana has been facing a very difficult fiscal situation for quite some time. Since 2012, the country has run large fiscal deficits, which have led to rapid debt build-up. The ratio of public debt to GDP, which stood at 29.1% in 2011, climbed swiftly to 55.6% in 2016. This led to a sharp increase in interest expenditure from 13.2% of total revenue and grants in 2011 to 35.8% in 2016.

August 18, 2022

IFS’ Assessment of the Government of Ghana’s Fiscal Consolidation Efforts in the Face of the Rapidly Deteriorating Macroeconomic Environment

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta presented the mid-year review of the 2022 budget statement to Parliament on Monday, July 25, 2022. As expected, the review contained revisions to the 2022 macroeconomic forecasts, in light of economic developments since the 2022 budget was announced in November last year. More importantly, it revised the 2022 fiscal projections to take account of budgetary outcomes in the first half of the year, aimed at putting Ghana on a fiscal consolidation path, as a means of addressing the rising macroeconomic instability the country is currently witnessing. Having registered large fiscal deficits in the past decade, which […]

March 3, 2023

The 2023 Budget Statement And Ghana’s Current Debt Restructuring Program: Ifs’ AssessmentAnd Recommendations

The 2023 budget statement delivered to Parliament by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, on 24th November, 2022 came against the backdrop of a raging macroeconomic crisis, which continues to inflict significant economic pain on the citizenry. It was thus expected that the budget would outline strong policy measures and targets that respond appropriately and adequately to the crisis. This assessment examines the extent to which the budget fulfils this need. It also examines the country’s current debt restructuring program, the Debt Exchange Program, and provides recommendations as to how best the government can reshape its policies to achieve better fiscal […]

June 15, 2023

IFS’ review of the government of Ghana’s 2023–2026 extended credit facility-supported program with the international monetary fund (IMF)1

The Ghanaian economy has been in crisis since 2022. In addition to the government struggling to pay its bills and service its debts, the macroeconomy has been volatile, with extremely high inflation and exchange rate depreciation rates, while business confidence has been weakening and economic growth has been falling. For example, year-on-year consumer price inflation rate, which respectively averaged 9.9% and 10.0% in 2020 and 2021, and which stood at 12.6% at the end of 2021, jumped to as high as 29.8% in June 2022. By the end of December 2022, the year-on-year consumer price inflation rate had skyrocketed to a whopping 54.1%. Also, annual depreciation rate of the cedi against the US dollar, which respectively stood at only 3.9% and 4.1% in 2020 and 2021, sharply increased to as high as 30.0% in 2022.

October 27, 2023

REVIEW OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GHANA’S 2023 MID-YEAR BUDGET AND FISCAL POLICY DIRECTION IN THE FACE OF THE CURRENT FISCAL AND MACROECONOMIC CRISES

The mid-year review of the 2023 budget statement presented to Parliament by the government of Ghana at the end of July 2023 provided, among other things, a critical update on the government’s fiscal policy performance in 2022 and the first half of 2023. It also revised budget estimates for 2023 to reflect happenings in the first half of the year and to align key fiscal targets to the IMF program secured in May 2023. In this brief paper, we critically analyze the mid-year budget, focusing on the reported fiscal outcomes for 2022 and the first half of 2023 and the […]