One of the quiet weaknesses in our public sector planning is the excessive dependence on the Consolidated Fund as the default answer to almost every development challenge. When ministries, departments, and agencies conceive a project, the first instinct is often to ask the taxpayer to fund it. If revenue falls short, borrowing becomes the next option. Rarely do we hear serious discussions about private capital, user fee models, concession arrangements, or innovative financing structures.

This approach is neither sustainable nor necessary.

Consider the numbers. Ghana's public sector wage bill consumes approximately 44% of tax revenue. In addition, about 42% to 48% of government revenue goes into debt servicing through interest payments and principal repayments.

By the time salaries are paid, and debt obligations honoured, a substantial portion of public resources has already been committed. Yet we somehow expect what remains to finance roads, schools, hospitals, water systems, sanitation, security, housing, agriculture, industrialisation, and countless new projects.

The expectation borders on fantasy.

More than US$1.5 billion has been borrowed over the years to build markets and sporting facilities, some of which remain underutilised or abandoned. The real issue is opportunity cost. Every dollar committed to such projects is a dollar unavailable for roads, water, healthcare, education, agriculture, or debt reduction.

This is why the continued habit of treating the Consolidated Fund as the primary source of financing for almost every development initiative is becoming increasingly difficult to justify.

A significant number of public projects can attract private investment and recover their costs through user fees, reducing the burden on taxpayers and government borrowing. The challenge is often not the absence of capital but the absence of imagination, innovation, and the willingness to structure projects differently.

This is not an argument for commercialising every public service. Basic healthcare, security, justice, and critical social interventions will always require public funding. However, there is little justification for insisting that every project, regardless of its revenue-generating potential, must be funded by taxpayers or sovereign borrowing.

The consequence is familiar: overcrowded budgets, delayed projects, unpaid contractors, rising debt, and persistent fiscal pressure.

Government's role should increasingly be to regulate, facilitate, supervise, and protect the public interest, not necessarily to borrow, build, own, and fund everything.

Perhaps every ministry, department, and agency should answer one simple question before requesting money from the Consolidated Fund:

If private investors are willing to finance a project and users are willing to pay for it, why should the taxpayer carry the burden?

In today's Ghana, that is not merely a budgeting question. It is a development imperative.