From 2021 to 2023, the Finance Ministry was once again named Ghana’s most financially irresponsible public entity.
This most recent evaluation comes after a comparable ranking that the Ministry conducted from 2015 to 2020.
The findings are included in a recent report published by Oxfam Ghana and IMANI Africa, which used their Fiscal Recklessness Index’s third edition to assess financial irregularities among Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).
According to the survey, the MoF is ranked first, followed by the Ministries of Health, Roads and Highways, Communication and Digitalization, and Food and Agriculture.
Dennis Asare, Senior Research Associate at IMANI Africa, disclosed that Ghana lost more than GH₵ 4.9 billion in 2023 during a media conference on the report’s conclusions.
Mr. Asare emphasized that such large financial losses could have been used to fund social intervention initiatives like the Ghana School Feeding Program and the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) initiative.
He clarified that the MoF’s financial mishandling is indicative of larger systemic problems because it is a key management body that supervises other organizations.
Asare added that other ministries under its control are also affected by the Ministry’s financial irresponsibility. The government’s inability to collect taxes, which indicated weaknesses in revenue mobilization efforts, was one of the report’s main concerns.
The report included suggestions for resolving these issues, with an emphasis on creating a fiscal council with greater authority.
“We need a stronger fiscal council, not just a committee. All political parties agree on the importance of such an institution. Now is the time to formalize it with legal backing and ensure it has the authority to perform its critical oversight functions effectively,” Mr Asare urged.
