National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Tain Constituency, Adama Sulemana, says his biggest expectation for the 2026 Budget is how government will manage the growing public sector wage bill and create sustainable jobs outside the public sector.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Metro TV on Thursday, November 13, 2025, the Tain MP said the Minister for Finance Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson faces a tough balancing act, finding room to compensate workers while keeping the economy stable under the IMF programme.
“My expectation of this budget is the risk that the budget poses, and I’m expecting the minister to find a way to navigate those risks,” he told Metro TV’s Parliamentary Affairs Correspondent Dominic Ansah-Prah.
“The first risk is the compensation,” he noted.
The Tain MP explained that unplanned recruitments by the previous administration have put pressure on government expenditure.
“The previous government employed 13,000 health personnel without budgeting for them, gave clearance for 14,000 education personnel without budgeting for them, and another 6,000 public sector workers. So in all, 33,000 without budgeting for them,” he said.
He noted that more than half of the country’s total budget goes into paying public sector workers, even though they represent less than five percent of the population.
“As we speak now, we have a little under one million public sector workers out of our population. We spend over 50% of our appropriation on those public sector workers. The rest – 33 million people – I’m trying to see how the minister will find an innovative way of absorbing them into employment, not necessarily by government but through the private sector,” he stressed.
The Tain MP urged the government to focus on policies that would stimulate private sector growth to create jobs and sustain Ghana’s recent economic progress.
“We are having an upward trajectory of our economic indicators – GDP, interest rate, exchange rate, inflation and the rest. How are we going to sustain it?” he asked.
He also called for attention to infrastructure expansion and measures to stay within the IMF’s fiscal targets.
“The IMF programme says we need to make a 1.5% primary surplus, meaning when you take your revenue and expenditure, you must get a surplus of 1.5% of GDP. How is the minister going to meet that and still keep the economy growing?” he questioned.
On education, Adama Sulemana described it as one of the most critical areas of the budget, saying he expects “a holistic approach” that addresses all levels – from basic to tertiary.
“Educational infrastructure is abysmal in this country,” he said. “I’ve seen resources going into the GETFund to tackle that, but we must also improve the living conditions of our teachers.”
The Tain MP urged the John Dramani Mahama administration to consolidate gains made in 2025 while easing the burden on public workers and maintaining fiscal discipline.
“If we are able to consolidate the gains we’ve made in the last year and again this year going into 2027, I’m sure we’ll be able to give public sector workers, especially teachers, something meaningful to take home,” he said.
