Chief Executive Officer of MGA Consulting Ghana Limited, Michael Abbiw, says economic stability, rather than short-term currency movements, is what businesses need to plan, grow and compete effectively.
Speaking on Bottomline on Metro TV, Mr Abbiw said 2025 was a difficult but defining year for many businesses, including his firm, as organisations adjusted to changes in government spending and market conditions.
“Last year came with various types of challenges, one, because there was a major reliance on the development environment and also on government businesses,” he said.
According to him, the year marked a turning point for MGA Consulting as it deliberately shifted away from government and development-related work towards supporting private sector businesses.
“Last year was a key area where now we were shifting from the reliance on government-related businesses and then development cooperation-related businesses into looking strongly at how do we now provide a lot more support to private sector,” he stated.
Mr Abbiw described 2025 as a mixed year, with a difficult start followed by a strong recovery towards the end.
“The first part of the year was a bit more challenging and then we had a recovery and at the end we were able to do far more better,” he said.
He noted that business activity picked up significantly in the final quarter.
“By October, November, December, MGA now started doing a lot more business within the private sector, and we had a bit more demand than what we could be able to achieve,” he added.
Mr Abbiw said the broader business environment was influenced by the change in government, which initially slowed spending but later contributed to market confidence.
“When you look at the entire market, the change of government also had a lot to do with it. There was a lot more trust that was put on the current government,” he said.
He explained that businesses allowed the government time to settle and roll out policies, resulting in gradual economic stabilisation.
“We saw a bit of stabilization and there was a gradual stabilization towards the end of the year,” he said.
While acknowledging the cedi’s appreciation against the dollar towards the end of the year, Mr Abbiw said predictability matters more than whether the currency rises or falls.
“It’s not more about whether the dollar is going up or down, but it’s really about can we have a stable dollar, can we be able to predict into the future,” he said.
He added that stability allows businesses to plan effectively.
Mr Abbiw warned that as stability improves, competition in the business environment will intensify.
“The business environment will now become more competitive,” he said, noting that customer loyalty is also changing.
“We are going to shift from where we look at brands and loyal to brands and now people will not be moving towards being loyal to brands that they understand,” he explained.
He said businesses must respond by delivering real value rather than relying on price cuts or visibility alone.
Mr Abbiw said the outlook for the current year depends largely on prudent government spending and investments that stimulate growth.
“We are looking at general stable economic environments where we can be able to do business,” he said, describing this as “good news for businesses.”
