For too long, Ghana’s budget told a painful story.
Before a single cedi could go to a classroom, a clinic or a road, about half of it was already spoken for.
That is why the announcement by the Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, that Ghana now spends less than 20 per cent of its revenue on debt servicing, down from about 50 per cent at the peak of the crisis, marks a turning point.
It is not merely a statistic, read story on page 20.
The Daily Graphic welcomes this progress, but sees it as both an achievement to protect and a responsibility to use wisely.
When half of revenue goes to interest and principal, a budget ceases to be a development tool and becomes a survival tool. In practical terms, this meant delayed payments to contractors, incomplete health centres, schools without desks and roads left half-finished. Every global shock pushed us closer to the edge.
Reducing that burden to under 20 per cent achieves three things.
First, it creates fiscal space: money for capital expenditure and social services without further borrowing, sufficient to complete Agenda 111 hospitals, expand school infrastructure and repair feeder roads.
Second, it restores credibility, signalling to markets and development partners that Ghana is serious about living within its means.
Third, it protects the vulnerable; when debt service crowds out spending, the poor feel the impact first through cuts to health, education and social protection.
This did not happen by accident. It is the result of painful but necessary choices: debt restructuring, expenditure controls, revenue mobilisation and negotiations with bilateral partners.
But the country’s economic history has a pattern: consolidation followed by slippage, especially in election years Fiscal rules on paper are not enough — they must be binding, transparent and enforced.
Enshrining them in law would mean expenditure ceilings, deficit targets and debt limits cannot be waived for political convenience, giving the Finance
Ministry, Parliament, the IMF and citizens a yardstick to measure performance.
We urge the government to fast-track that legislation and subject it to broad consultation, tough enough to prevent a return to crisis but flexible enough for counter-cyclical spending in genuine emergencies.
Debt sustainability is not the end goal; it is the start point.
The fiscal space freed up must not be squandered on recurrent consumption or waste.
Ghanaians will rightly ask: what has changed in my community?
This is the moment to prioritise high-return projects: completing abandoned infrastructure, investing in agriculture to reduce food inflation, expanding technical and vocational training and strengthening primary healthcare so we do not spend more later treating preventable diseases.
It is also time to fix leakages — more fiscal space is useless if procurement is not value-for-money, if ghost workers remain on the payroll and if state enterprises continue to incur losses
Efficiency savings must match savings from debt.
This journey teaches three lessons.
Borrowing must be tied to growth — debt that does not build roads, factories or human capital becomes a trap; every new loan must be justified by revenue or savings.
Revenue must be diversified: The government must broaden the tax base, improve compliance and reduce exemptions, since a larger, more formal economy is the only durable way to keep the debt-to-revenue ratio down.
And the government must communicate with citizens — fiscal policy feels abstract until it shows up as a new CHPS compound or a paved road, so it must show, project by project, how savings are being reinvested.
We must be careful not to declare victory too early. Global conditions remain uncertain, interest rates are still high and climate shocks or commodity swings can quickly derail plans.
The political cycle, too, often tests fiscal discipline.
But for the first time in years, the budget math is working in our favour; we have moved from managing a crisis to managing an opportunity.
The announcement is, therefore, both a report card and a charge: one that says the painful adjustments are yielding results and one that says do not waste this second chance.
Ghana’s debt burden nearly broke the state’s ability to deliver; bringing debt service below 20 per cent of revenue gives us back the ability to choose.
Let us choose schools over slogans, clinics over ceremonies and roads over rhetoric.
Let us also choose discipline over drift by locking fiscal rules into law, so future governments cannot undo the gains for short-term gain.
There must be a real commitment to the Ghanaian people: this breathing space will be used to build a country where debt serves development, not the other way round.
That is how we turn fiscal relief into real prosperity.
