The Ministry of Finance has formally handed over its former office block to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), ending more than five decades of shared occupancy in a move officials say will help address the agency’s long-standing office space constraints.
The handover ceremony took place at the GSS headquarters in Accra on July 16 2026, where the Minister for Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, presented the keys to the Government Statistician, Dr Alhassan Iddrisu.
Dr Forson described the event as the return of a building that originally belonged to the country’s statistical agency.
“Fifty years ago, this block began a journey. Today, it comes home,” he said.
He also noted that, the arrangement dated back to 1961, when the then Central Bureau of Statistics was established under the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry subsequently occupied a significant portion of the building while the statistical agency continued operating from the remaining space.
According to the Minister, the Finance Ministry relocated to its new headquarters in February 2026, paving the way for the government to formally transfer the entire facility to the Ghana Statistical Service.
“The building now belongs to you,” Dr Forson told officials of the Service.
Receiving the keys, Government Statistician Dr Alhassan Iddrisu described the handover as a historic milestone that would help ease the institution’s infrastructure challenges.
He added that, office accommodation had limited the Service to operating at about half of its approved staffing strength.
“This gives us room to grow and room to seat some hundred new staff that we have been pledged by our Honourable Minister to recruit,” he emphasized.
Dr Iddrisu added that the building could also temporarily accommodate staff from the Greater Accra Regional Office, whose current premises have serious structural defects.
He thanked the Ministry of Finance for facilitating the transfer, describing it as a demonstration of the close collaboration between the two institutions.
The Government Statistician also appealed for increased budgetary support to maintain the ageing facility.
“This block brings utilities, maintenance and refurbishment. We know refurbishment for a structure of this age is not a small task. These are recurring costs, not one-time,” he said.
Officials said the transfer forms part of wider efforts to strengthen Ghana’s national statistical system and improve the production of official data to support national development planning.
By Coffie Mawuedem Noel
