President John Mahama’s decision to scrap fuel allowances for political appointees could save Ghana over GH₵121 million within four years, Economic Policy Advisor to the Vice President, Dr. Sharif Mahmud Khalid, has estimated.
Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express on Tuesday, Dr. Khalid described the projected savings as conservative, explaining that his calculations were based on “ballpark” fuel consumption figures derived from GOIL pump prices and average vehicle usage.
“This is what I did in the studio using GOIL’s figures,” he stated. His assumptions included 1,000 government vehicles split evenly between 500 saloon cars and 500 SUVs each consuming around 50 litres of petrol weekly.
“If you crunch the numbers a bit on average, the government will be saving probably about a total of GH¢2.5 million plus a month and GH¢30 million plus a year. In four years, we’re probably talking the government saving GH¢121 plus million.” he revealed.
Although the real government fleet is likely larger, Dr. Khalid emphasised that his estimates were “deliberately modest to present a realistic scenario.”
He stopped short of confirming how the Mahama administration intends to channel these savings, but outlined several transformational possibilities. “A maternity block for a hospital or clinic costs probably about GH¢1.5 million we could probably get an average of 81 of them out of the savings,” he explained.
Alternatively, he said the GH₵ 121 million could finance 303 Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds or construct 121 six-unit classroom blocks, based on average unit costs of GH₵ 400,000 and GH₵ 1 million, respectively.
“These were things I think we could do before we actually want to say whether it’s a PR gimmick or not,” he said, addressing scepticism about the policy’s impact.
According to Dr. Khalid, the objective is to provide a full picture of the fiscal space given what such austerity measures can create. “I’m not saying this is what the government is doing. I’m just trying to give the holistic picture of what expectations we could have, and the savings we could make if we actually adhere to this policy,” he clarified.
President Mahama’s fuel allowance cuts are seen as a flagship measure to curb government expenditure and entrench fiscal discipline ahead of the 2028 general elections.
