The Minister of Finance read the Financial Year (FY) 2026 Budget about two weeks ago.
As usual, the presentation was greeted with the usual political theatrics that have come to characterise budget presentations.
Even more intriguing is observing the debate about the budget on the floor of Parliament, where one is tempted to ask if we are reading from the same budget or perhaps there were two versions prepared by the Finance Minister- one for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and another for the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
I must quickly add that this phenomenon of political polarisation about budgets is not unique to Ghana. After all, the country in which I live and work just experienced a 43-day federal government shutdown over a budget impasse.
In Ghana, we do not risk a shutdown because our political contests so far have not produced divided outcomes where the executive is controlled by one party and the legislature by another.
But my observation leads me to ask one question – why is it increasingly becoming difficult for our politicians to find points of reconciliation on matters as important as the budget?
What budgets represent
The average citizen is no stranger to what budgets are. When I think of the budget, I do so along three important dimensions.
First, the budget is the fiscal governance blueprint for the country, which allows a government to give an account to citizens on how the nation’s resources are being spent and the results it is producing or not.
It also provides a government with the opportunity to demonstrate its intentions of how it plans to spend the nation’s resources and the results it expects to see if all plans materialise.
Second, the budget is a policy tool and that is seen in the full title of the country’s budget document.
The policy part of the budget enables a government to offer solutions to key challenges facing the country but within the context of its resource opportunities and limitations.
It is in the budget that the government can say these policy solutions are possible because we know how many resources we have or expect to have over the next year.
Third, I think of budgets as an accountability tool. Notice that when the budget is read, there is an account of the current and previous fiscal year.
Accounting allows citizens to ask whether a government kept its commitment or not.
And if a government did not keep its commitment, what were the consequences for the country’s resources? For the citizen, it is an opportunity to determine whether there should be political consequences for this.
Keep in mind, accountability is not only about punishing wrong, but also about rewarding right behaviour.
Thus, when a government honours its commitments and the outcomes are positive, citizens can decide to reward it politically.
Political interpretation
It is the third point above, the political rewards and punishment system, that I believe drives the response of ruling and opposition parties.
For ruling parties, the ability to demonstrate that their budget represents a path of positive outcomes for citizens is critically important.
So, in the past, even when governments imposed painful economic and fiscal policies on citizens, it was framed as a tool to grow jobs and strengthen the economy.
It, therefore, comes as no surprise to hear the ruling party (NDC) speak of the budget using positive narratives.
For opposition political parties, the ability to demonstrate that a budget is empty and represents no hope of addressing the nation’s challenges is one way to win the hearts and minds of voters in anticipation of the next election.
It, therefore, comes as no surprise when the main opposition party (NPP) speaks of the budget using negative narratives.
But in between the two extremes are points of reconciliation that demonstrate certain basic facts about the current state of the country’s finances and economy based on data from institutions tasked with the responsibility of keeping track.
Unless one doubts data from the Bank of Ghana or the Ghana Statistical Service, for example, then we can agree on some things: a) the economy has stabilised; b) the economic indicators have changed their trajectory and look positive for now, and c) the fiscal outlook of the country has improved.
Based on these basic facts, a read through the FY 2026 Budget signals the government’s intention to move beyond stabilisation to a path of growth while addressing some of the challenges facing the country.
For citizens, when the partisan rancour is over, what will matter to them is how well the budget addresses their pinch points.
And no matter the polarised interpretations of the budget, it is their lived experiences that would be the true test of what happened.
The writer is the Project Director, Democracy Project
