Ghana’s 2027 Budget will be judged by whether public institutions receive the funds and tools they need to keep roads serviceable, courts working and public services reliable.
“Public money belongs to the people. Those entrusted with it must answer to them.” Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson set that standard in Ghana’s 2027 Budget Speech. What would it mean in practice? A farmer would get produce to market before it spoils.
A manufacturer could plan a shift without losing hours to a power cut. A supplier could expect to be paid on time, even when the customer is the state. Whether the budget delivers those results depends on the institutions that put it to work.
The speech recognises that these problems are connected. It proposes investment in roads, rail, power and agriculture, while giving private enterprise the principal role in investment and innovation. The direction is welcome. The gap is between what the budget says Ghana should build and what it says about the institutions that must deliver, maintain and oversee it. The speech is abridged, so Parliament should look to the full estimates and implementation plans for the answers.
Measure the service that spending buys
In September 2026, it took me more than twelve hours to travel the 266 kilometres from Nkroful to Kumasi through Tarkwa, Dunkwa-on-Offin, Ayanfuri and Obuasi. One journey is no national average, but it shows what a long delay can do to a working day. A truck stuck on the road cannot make another delivery. A processor must hold more stock or risk running out of supplies.
The budget speech allocates GH¢3.5 billion to the Road Maintenance Trust Fund (paragraph 588), but gives no truck toll rates or revenue forecast and does not explain how axle-load limits will be enforced. Tolls can help pay for road wear; axle-load controls prevent avoidable damage. Parliament should ask for proposed rates by vehicle class, projected net receipts from domestic and transit trucks, and a plan for weighbridge coverage and enforcement. It should compare projected receipts and other funding with the cost of maintaining the main freight corridors, then publish actual collections, releases and maintenance work.
The proposed Western Corridor Railway could take some mineral freight off the roads if it offers a dependable service. Meanwhile, the Big Push allocation needs explaining: the speech gives GH¢28 billion in one section and GH¢29.8 billion in another. The full estimates should reconcile the two figures.
The Accra–Kumasi Expressway illustrates both the promise and the risk. The Minister reported about US$3 billion in the project account against an engineer’s estimate of US$2.98 billion. Providing finance before awarding contracts is sound practice. But an estimate below the initial US$4 billion figure is not a saving already made. Final tender prices, land and compensation costs, and the long-term maintenance bill should inform any decision to commit money to another expressway.
Agriculture deserves the same scrutiny. The budget links machinery, irrigation, storage and buyers, and proposes that public institutions buy Ghana-grown staples. A tractor does little for a farmer whose field lacks water or whose buyer pays late. Publish where the services will be available together, then report what farmers actually received, how much produce was lost and whether they were paid on time.
Give public ownership independent oversight
There is a sound case for public ownership where duplicating a network would be wasteful or essential services would otherwise be undersupplied. An electricity transmission grid is a good example. That case does not settle who should build every power plant. The budget proposes a fully state-funded 1,450-megawatt thermal plant and a state-owned 600-megawatt solar plant.
Government should explain the change from the 1,200-megawatt thermal proposal in the previous budget and publish the comparison with rehabilitating existing capacity or procuring power competitively. The test is dependable power at a sustainable cost.
As public investment expands, so does the need for credible scrutiny. The Constitution Review Committee proposed constitutional status for the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA), merit-based board appointments and greater board authority over senior management. It also proposed barring ministers, deputy ministers and MPs from enterprise boards. Government rejected constitutional status for SIGA, arguing that existing law was sufficient to establish and regulate it and that no vulnerability justified the change. It favoured legislation for appointments and governance rules.
Legislation is the right place for detailed recruitment and reporting procedures. The constitutional question is whether SIGA can publish an unfavourable assessment of an enterprise without depending on the authorities it scrutinises. Its independence, leadership tenure and duty to report to Parliament and the public should have constitutional protection. Government should set ownership policy, boards should appoint and assess executives, and SIGA should verify and publish the results. Parliament should hold SIGA itself to account.
The numbers show why follow-up matters. In SIGA’s wider portfolio, which includes joint ventures and other state entities, audited accounts used in the State Ownership Report increased from 53 of 152 in 2024 to 108 of 162 in 2025. Yet only 61 entities submitted audited accounts by the reported deadline, and only 72 of 148 targeted entities signed performance contracts. These gaps do not prove political interference, but they show that formal obligations are not consistently met. Publish compliance and corrective action for each enterprise. When profits rise, show how much came from operations and how much from exchange gains. A better accounting result does not tell a factory whether outages have fallen.
Make commitments survive elections
The Minister asked Parliament to look beyond one electoral cycle and allocated GH¢25 million to the National Development Planning Commission. The CRC proposed strengthening the Commission’s coordinating and monitoring role and establishing a formal procedure for changing the national plan. Government rejected the constitutional approach, citing the risk of binding future elected governments. Elected governments should be able to change priorities. They should also publish what a change will cost, why it is justified and what happens to work already paid for.
Effective courts are part of productive infrastructure
On September 3, 2025, President Mahama said his government would hold the Ofankor–Nsawam contractor to its commitment to finish by the end of June 2026. By 26 May 2026, Citi Newsroom reported 82 per cent technical completion and a request for more time, citing unresolved compensation and utility relocation. The Ghanaian Times had also reported compensation litigation and right-of-way problems. These reports do not establish that the courts caused the delay. They show why agencies must settle land and compensation issues early, and why disputes that remain need a fair, timely hearing.
The same principle applies to public contracts. The IMF’s Ghana Governance Diagnostic warns that contracts cancelled or left unpaid after elections can generate costly claims. The budget proposes protecting certain public funds from attachment and confining enforcement to the defaulting agency. Protecting emergency funds is understandable. But if the agency has no money, a supplier may win in court and still go unpaid. Pair any restriction with a funded payment mechanism and clear deadlines. Before cancelling an inherited contract, publish the grounds and assess the potential liability.
A judge can be paid on time and still be unable to hear a case because the registry lacks working equipment or the court cannot keep its recording system running. The same applies to a road engineer without funds to inspect a contractor’s work. Salaries keep skilled people in public service. But when the Ministry of Finance pays the wage bill and releases operating funds late, the state bears the cost of employing people while citizens wait for the service those people were hired to provide.
The GH¢1.43 billion allocation to the Judicial Service should be judged by what reaches the courts and when. Publish the approved budget, planned release dates, actual releases and spending separately for compensation, goods and services, and capital. This would help Parliament distinguish delayed releases from failures by the Judicial Service to use funds already available. Pilot early hearings in commercial and land cases, record reasons for adjournments and publish how long unresolved cases have been waiting. Track the time from filing to judgment and from judgment to enforcement separately. A processor may win a case and still run out of cash to buy the next crop. Reliable enforcement gives businesses more confidence to supply on credit, bid for public work and invest.
What Parliament should require
First, before awarding major contracts, the Ministry of Finance and sector ministries should publish the business case, the full cost of building and maintaining each asset, and any taxpayer guarantees. Within the first quarter of 2027, they should name the officer responsible for each project and publish a timetable. Thereafter, report releases, costs and delays quarterly, alongside the results users care about: journey times, power outages and whether farmers are paid on time.
Second, government should revisit the CRC’s case for an independent SIGA. While constitutional reform is debated, require open, merit-based board selection and direct public reporting. SIGA should publish which enterprises filed audited accounts and met their performance targets. A parliamentary committee should hear from boards that repeatedly miss deadlines and publish the corrective action agreed.
Third, require agencies to resolve right-of-way and compensation issues early, and to publish reasons and estimated liabilities before cancelling inherited contracts. If Parliament restricts enforcement against public funds, it should require a funded payment process and clear deadlines for valid judgments. The Judicial Service should publish case duration and enforcement results.
Which would make the biggest difference where you live or work by the end of 2027: a more dependable road, fewer power cuts, or being paid promptly after winning a case? If you have faced a compensation dispute or waited for a judgment to be enforced, where did the process stall?
