Finance Minister Ato Forson Wants To Read The 2027 Budget When Ghanaians Are Sleeping

Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin says Finance Minister Dr Cassiel Ato Forson wants to read the 2027 Budget when Ghanaians are heading for bed.3News, November 11, 2026.3News, November 11, 2026 (James Agalga’s reply and the currency launch). 3News, November 10, 2026 (Speaker Bagbin’s approval). Modern Ghana, November 12, 2026.Top Radio 103.1 newscard, November 12, 2026

He said this in Parliament on Wednesday, November 11. Dr Forson is to present the Budget Statement at 6pm today, Thursday, November 12. Speaker Alban Bagbin approved the hour on Tuesday, after the minister asked to move the reading from the daytime sitting. He said Dr Forson had given good reasons. He did not say what they were.

Mr Afenyo-Markin, MP for Effutu, called the choice strange. A man sure of his numbers, he said, does not wait for night.

“We find it very strange that the Finance Minister has chosen 6pm as the only time for him to come because he wants Ghanaians to be sleeping, he said. If he is very clear on his mind, what does he fear? But he has chosen to come here at night, and the same tomorrow they are changing the currency. The same tomorrow they are doing two things.

He warned a row over the time could run late. “Then it drags into 10pm, he said.

Majority Leader James Agalga answered on the floor. Nobody, he said, planned to read a budget to a country that had gone to sleep.

“We are not intent on presenting a budget statement when the people of this country are asleep,” he said. How many Ghanaians go to sleep at 6pm?”

People would stay up, he added. They’ll be wide awake to listen to the good news that we have.”

The evening hour, he said, is because of another event the same day, the launch of new cedi notes. Dr Forson is expected there, and so are the Speaker and the Minority Leader. The minister has to be there when those notes are launched.

Mr Bagbin’s worry was about MPs, not the public. He did not want members already tired when the minister walked in, so the House may sit around 6pm and hear the budget fresh.

Wednesday’s quarrel was not about the figures in The New Economy.” It was about the clock.

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