Ranking Member of Parliament’s Economy and Development Committee, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has challenged Ghana’s newly established Fiscal Council to move beyond its establishment and actively scrutinise government spending commitments and fiscal figures presented in the 2027 Budget.
He argues that the Fiscal Council must play a more visible oversight role by examining inconsistencies in the government’s fiscal projections and determining whether budgetary announcements are supported by actual releases of public funds.
Speaking during the Minority’s press briefing on the 2027 Budget, the Ofoase Ayirebi MP stressed that the Council’s responsibility should not end with its inauguration, insisting that Ghanaians expect it to provide independent scrutiny of government fiscal commitments.
Fiscal Council Must Go Beyond Inauguration
According to Oppong Nkrumah, the establishment of the Fiscal Council is meaningful only if it actively examines government fiscal operations, identifies inconsistencies and communicates its findings to the public.
He maintained that whenever budgets are presented with questionable or inconsistent fiscal figures, the Council must intervene by interrogating the numbers and providing clarity on the government’s actual financial position.
“The job of a Fiscal Council is not just to be set up, inaugurated and then become silent,” he said.
He believes that the Council must demonstrate its relevance by speaking up when discrepancies emerge in government budgetary announcements and fiscal commitments.
Announcements Must Match Actual Releases
The former Information Minister particularly questioned the tendency to celebrate large government investment announcements without establishing whether the promised amounts have actually been released for their intended purposes.
Using the government’s Big Push infrastructure programme as an example, he argued that announcing a $30 billion allocation should not automatically be interpreted as evidence that the money has been made available or spent on the projects.
He insisted that the Fiscal Council must examine the actual disbursements and establish whether they correspond with the figures announced by the Finance Minister.
“The exercise where the Finance Minister announces that we have allocated $30 billion to Big Push and the majority goes yay is meaningless if it is not backed by the actual releases,” he stated.
A Call for Greater Fiscal Transparency
The ranking member is of the view that the Fiscal Council must help bridge the information gap between government budget announcements and actual expenditure.
He therefore called on the institution to scrutinise the 2027 Budget, examine the underlying numbers and provide Ghanaians with independent assessments of government fiscal performance.
“And so it is time for the Fiscal Council to get into the numbers,” he declared.
