Head of the Central Analysis and Forecasting Office at the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet), Felicity Ahafianyo, says the Agency remains severely understaffed despite being responsible for the country’s entire weather and climate monitoring system.
Speaking on Good Afternoon Ghana on Metro TV on Monday, December 1, 2025, Madam Felicity Ahafianyo said the public often assumes GMet’s work is only about announcing whether it will rain or shine, but the Agency’s mandate is much deeper and requires far more personnel than it currently has.
“Most people think that our mandate is only to go out, watch the sky, and then come and tell them that it’s going to rain or it’s going to be sunny. But then we do more than that,” she said.
She explained that GMet is responsible for collecting and archiving all meteorological data in the country, running short-, medium-, and long-term forecasts, supporting aviation, agriculture, climatology, and even groundwater studies.
Despite this wide scope, staffing levels remain far below what is required.
“We are less than… I think we are less than 500 staff. That’s across the country,” she revealed.
GMet’s operations depend on a nationwide network of weather stations, each needing trained scientists and technicians. But many of these stations are now understaffed or inactive.
“For the synoptic station, we are running like 21. It used to be 22, but we have to close one down,” she said.
At each of these stations, she noted, “you have a staff strength of maybe 10.”
She added that in the past, Ghana had about 643 stations when all categories were combined – agro-meteorological, climatological, aviation, and others – each requiring several staff to run effectively.
“So if you are doing maybe five personnel for each station, you multiply it,” she pointed out, indicating the large number of workers required compared to current staffing levels.
Beyond the field stations, GMet also runs specialised units at the headquarters, including agro-meteorology for farmers, hydrometeorology for groundwater, climatology, IT, engineering, and the central forecasting office – all competing for limited staff.
Madam Ahafianyo stressed that becoming a forecaster is not a simple role, and the Agency needs many more technically skilled workers.
“The technical aspect… you have to be a scientist,” she said, explaining that staff need strong backgrounds in physics, mathematics, coding, statistics and even journalism for those who present weather information to the public.
But recruiting and maintaining such specialised professionals has been difficult.
She admitted that understaffing affects not only internal operations, but also how well the Agency communicates its work and updates.
“We issue the forecast, and people don’t pick it,” she said, noting that old weather information often circulates more widely than updated forecasts because the Agency does not have the manpower to expand its communication reach.
Still, she said GMet continues to update forecasts three times a day – at 5 am., 11 am and 5 pm – but the team remains stretched.
Despite being responsible for an essential national function from aviation safety to farmers’ planting schedules – GMet continues to operate with fewer than 500 staff nationwide, far below the levels needed to run hundreds of stations and specialised units.
