Ghana’s Finance Ministry on Monday released a comprehensive set of macroeconomic data for the 2025 fiscal year, confirming one of the most dramatic single-year reversals in the country’s economic history and simultaneously setting the bar against which the Mahama administration’s second year will be judged.
In a press release issued on Monday, February 23, 2026, the Ministry described 2025 as a turning point, pointing to a GH¢82.1 billion reduction in the country’s public debt stock, which fell from GH¢726.7 billion, equivalent to 61.8% of gross domestic product (GDP), in December 2024 to GH¢641.0 billion, representing 45.3% of GDP, by December 2025.
The Ministry credited a combination of fiscal discipline, strict commitment controls, structural reforms and prudent monetary policy with reversing pressures that defined the end of 2024, when the 91-day Treasury bill rate stood at 27.7%, inflation was at 23.8%, and the cedi had depreciated 19.2% against the US dollar.
Inflation declined for thirteen consecutive months, falling by 19.7 percentage points from 23.5% in January 2025 to 3.8% in January 2026. The 91-day Treasury bill rate dropped from 27.7% at end-2024 to 11% by December 2025, and fell further to 6.5% by February 2026. Commercial bank lending rates eased from 30.25% in 2024 to 20.45% in 2025, with government expressing confidence that further moderation is likely in the current low-inflation environment.
The cedi appreciated 40.7% against the US dollar in 2025, a sharp reversal of the 19.2% depreciation recorded in 2024. Credit to the private sector expanded by GH¢17.1 billion during the year, while the current account recorded a surplus of US$9.1 billion at end-December 2025, up from US$1.5 billion in 2024. Gross international reserves rose to US$13.8 billion, providing cover for approximately 5.7 months of imports.
Provisional data show real GDP growing by 6.1% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2025, driven primarily by services and agriculture. Non-oil growth was stronger at 7.5%, partly reflecting the drag from an oil and gas sub-sector that contracted sharply in the first half of the year due to prolonged under-investment in upstream production. The overall fiscal deficit on a commitment basis narrowed to 1.0% of GDP, significantly outperforming the 2.8% target, while the primary balance swung to a 2.6% surplus.
For Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Baah Forson, who took office with the economy in acute distress following Ghana’s 2022 debt crisis and subsequent International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, the data represent proof of principle. He has repeatedly cited non-oil tax revenue rising to 8.7% of GDP from 7.8% in 2024 and renegotiated power purchase agreements (PPAs) saving US$250 million as evidence that discipline rather than luck underpinned the recovery.
The independent question the data cannot answer alone is whether 2025 was a structural turning point or a stabilisation phase that could unravel under renewed pressure. Analysts have pointed to several risks: sustaining fiscal discipline in an election-adjacent political cycle, maintaining currency strength if global commodity conditions tighten, translating lower interest rates into the manufacturing expansion and employment creation that Ghana’s growing and youthful population demands, and managing the transition out of the IMF programme, which is set to conclude in 2026, without triggering a loss of fiscal anchor.
Minister Forson has framed 2026 as a shift from recovery to transformation, describing the government’s next priorities as investing in infrastructure, agriculture and agro-processing, improving education and healthcare, and creating the quality formal jobs that macroeconomic stabilisation alone cannot deliver. Whether the 2025 numbers translate into that durable transformation, or remain a striking but ultimately isolated year of correction, will define the administration’s economic legacy.
