Finance Minister Dr Cassiel Ato Forson has been challenged to outperform the World Bank’s fiscal deficit projections for Ghana, following an impressive reduction in the country’s deficit in 2025.
Data and Policy Analyst Alfred Appiah expects the Finance Minister and his team to beat the World Bank’s projections, which indicate that Ghana’s fiscal deficit will widen to 2.2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2026 and 2.9% in 2027.
The projections come after Ghana recorded the largest improvement in its fiscal deficit among Sub-Saharan African countries in 2025.
According to the latest World Bank Africa Economic Update, Ghana’s fiscal deficit declined from 8.1% of GDP in 2024 to 1.2% in 2025, representing a 6.9-percentage-point reduction. The performance surpassed that of Burkina Faso, which recorded the region’s second-largest improvement at four percentage points.
Alfred Appiah praised Dr Forson and his team for the fiscal consolidation, saying the turnaround was impressive both on its own and in comparison with the rest of the region.
He also pointed to a substantial reduction in public debt, with Ghana’s debt-to-GDP ratio falling from 70.3% in 2024 to 48.8% in 2025.
The World Bank’s projections suggest that the deficit could gradually widen over the next two years, potentially putting the durability of Ghana’s fiscal gains to the test.
However, the analyst expressed confidence that the Finance Minister could deliver a better outcome than the Bank anticipates.
“The World Bank already expects the deficit to widen to 2.2% this year and 2.9% by 2027. We would expect Ato to beat those projections,” he intimated.
Beating the projections would require the government to sustain revenue mobilisation, control expenditure and avoid the fiscal slippages that have undermined previous consolidation efforts. It would also mean balancing spending pressures with the need to support economic growth and create jobs.
A smaller-than-projected deficit could strengthen investor confidence, ease government borrowing needs and help preserve the progress made in reducing public debt. But the quality of consolidation will matter as much as the headline numbers. Cutting the deficit sustainably without undermining productive investment will be critical.
For Dr Forson, the challenge is to prove that the country can keep its fiscal consolidation under control even as demands on the public purse grow. The World Bank has set the forecast, but Alfred Appiah wants Ghana to do better.
