Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson has revealed that the 2026 Budget will be presented to Parliament in October 2025 instead of November 2025.  

According to him, the decision is to allow more time for scrutiny and debate by Members of Parliament before the budget comes into force from the beginning of 2026.

He disclosed this on a Special Edition of PM EXPRESS with host Evans Mensah on July 24, 2025.

The Finance Minister explained that this should also help government programmes and initiatives to fully take off immediately from the beginning of next year.

The current Public Financial Management Act requires the finance minister, acting on behalf of the President, to lay before Parliament not later than the 15th of November of each financial year, estimates of the revenues and expenditure of the government, the annual budget, for the ensuing financial year.

Reviewing 2025 Budget Targets

Speaking on the same programme, the Finance Minister also justified his decision not to review the Macro- macro-economic targets set out in the 2025 Budget.

He argued that “we want to remain cautiously optimistic rather than to behave that we have gotten there”.

This is why we want to be reminded that “we have not gotten out of the woods yet”, Dr. Forson added

He was, however, optimistic that Ghana will now achieve the 11.9% inflation target before the end of this year.

Concerning growth and other indicators, he insisted that the government will stick to what was announced earlier this year.

The finance minister added that “the First half of 2025 has demonstrated government’s commitment to recovery”.

2025 Macro Economic Targets 

Overall Real GDP growth of at least 4.0%;

Non-Oil Real GDP growth of at least 4.8%;

End-year inflation rate of 11.9%;

Primary balance on commitment basis at a surplus of 1.5% of GDP;

and

Gross International Reserves covering not less than three months of imports.