Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin has said the 2027 Budget Statement presented by Finance Minister Dr Cassiel Ato Forson on Thursday, 12 November 2026, offered little hope.
He also accused the NDC government of failing to fulfil promises made to women and traders, particularly its commitment to establish a new bank to provide them with loans to support their businesses.
Mr Afenyo-Markin said the government’s failure to deliver on its campaign promises, including the 24-hour economy initiative, had vindicated the Minority’s earlier criticism of the administration.
“They haven’t been able to tell us how many jobs they have created. Ghanaians want jobs, jobs, jobs. We are not interested in data. We are not interested in a paper economy. We are not interested in what they call a New Economy,” he said at a post-budget press conference in Parliament on Thursday.
He also questioned the government’s approach to public spending, arguing that economic data alone would not improve the lives of citizens unless it was accompanied by actual expenditure and job creation.
During the budget presentation, Dr Forson said that under the New Economy, the government would judge economic growth by the number of jobs it creates. He added that the income generated would also be used to assess growth.
“We will judge growth by the jobs and income it creates,” he said.
Dr Forson further assured Ghanaians that the government would protect the economic recovery.
He said the government would scale up fiscal discipline as part of efforts to protect stability and deliver the benefits to the people of Ghana.
“Government will preserve stability. Government support to the private sector will be transparent. We will protect the recovery with fiscal discipline,” he said.
He further said Ghana had made significant gains and emerged from its worst economic crisis.
“Ghana has made significant gains, has emerged from the most painful economic crisis in our history, stability has returned, confidence is back, and Ghanaians can breathe again,” he said.
“The Ghanaian people paid heavy prices; the debt restructuring imposed severe hardships,” he added.
Dr Forson further said: “We [Ghana] have grown but we have not built enough resilience into that growth.”
Ahead of the budget presentation, Minister of Government Communications Felix Kwakye Ofosu said the New Economy, to be announced by the Finance Minister in the 2027 Budget Statement, would spell out clear plans to provide jobs for the youth.
He said the New Economy was not business as usual and was intended to serve a useful purpose.
“It is not business as usual; it creates jobs for the youth; it is a government programme intended to transform the economy over the next four years. 24-hour economy was never meant to be an event; it was a government initiative that brings incentives to the private sector,” he told TV3.
“Substantial work has gone into it; yes, we are yet to realise the full scale of the programme,” he added.
