The Ghana Publishing Company Limited (GPCL) says it printed the 2026 national budget in just one night, a feat the company says was only possible after it introduced a 24-hour shift system.
The revelation was made by GPCL’s Head of Corporate Affairs, Lantam Papanko, during an interview on Metro TV’s Good Afternoon Ghana on Tuesday, January 20, 2026.
According to Papanko, the company was previously not trusted with printing the budget because it could not meet the tight deadline.
He said: “Previously, the Ghana Publishing Company Limited is not the one that was printing it. It was outsourced to private people… because there was no trust in the Ghana Publishing Company Limited to be able to do it and do it on time.”
Papanko explained that government officials often submit the final budget documents late at night, sometimes as late as midnight, and require them to be in Parliament the following morning.
But with the new 24-hour system, GPCL claims it was able to complete the printing in record time.
He said: “They brought it very late. We went into, you know, our printing rooms… and then we printed it. By morning, we shipped it to Parliament.”
The corporate affairs manager also highlighted that the company had introduced a “premium plus” service for the Ghana Gazette, cutting the turnaround time for the publication to 24 hours.
He noted that the Gazette, a government document used for official announcements such as election results, name changes, and chieftaincy matters, previously took up to six weeks for the regular service.
Now, GPCL says the regular Gazette is available in three weeks, a premium Gazette in three days, and a premium plus Gazette in 24 hours.
Papanko said the 24-hour shift system was introduced within three weeks of the new management taking over in February 2025. He explained that the system also helped the company avoid paying overtime, since workers now rotate across shifts.
He said: “We could run 24 hours. So let’s divide the staff into two, for some to come in the morning shift and for some to come in the night shift… the 24-hour saved jobs at the Ghana Publishing Company Limited and enabled everybody to be more productive.”
The company also revealed that it had established a new quality control department to ensure that printed materials meet required standards before they are released to clients.
Papanko said: “There used to be no quality control department… It was just production. It is done. And sometimes clients would complain about the quality of the work.”
He added that the new department checks every aspect of production, including materials and font size, to ensure clients receive the correct final product.
The company also announced the creation of a legal department and a dedicated sales and marketing team to attract more private-sector printing jobs.
Papanko said GPCL now prints various materials such as flyers, banners, posters, and textbooks, including nursing textbooks for schools in Sierra Leone.
He said the company is now confident it can meet government expectations as a state-owned enterprise.
“The government is expecting to get money from us,” he said, adding that GPCL had internally generated a fixed deposit of 15 million cedis.
Papanko said the company’s progress was further recognised when President John Dramani Mahama visited the GPCL, describing the visit as “an endorsement of the good work that the management is doing.”
The company said it was the first time in the Fourth Republic that a sitting president had visited GPCL.
Papanko described the managing director, Nana Kwesi Boatey, as a “firm leader and a go-getter,” noting that projects such as the 24-hour shift and digital printing centre were implemented quickly.
He said: “When he says he wants to get something done, he gets it done.”
The GPCL official also showed the 2026 budget copy printed by the company, describing the work as “quality work” and saying the company has become “a world-class printing press.”
