Ghana hires international auditors to scrutinise GH¢4.4bn government debts

Read Time: 2 minutes

The Ministry of Finance has begun an eight-week forensic audit into GH¢4.4 billion in outstanding government payables, Finance Minister Dr Cassiel Ato Forson announced at a press conference on April 15 2025.

The event was held jointly with officials from the Bank of Ghana and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The exercise will be carried out by the Auditor-General’s office in collaboration with two international accounting firms.

Its objective is to verify the authenticity and actual amounts of unpaid government obligations that have accumulated over time.

This is in line with corrective actions under Ghana’s programme with the IMF, which is supported by the Extended Credit Facility.

“These steps are meant to strengthen our public expenditure controls and stop the continued build-up of arrears,” Dr Forson said.

He added that the audit team will provide recommendations for addressing any irregularities that may be discovered.

The move follows the government’s failure to meet several targets under the IMF programme, including missing the 2024 primary surplus target.

The Ministry has blamed this on what it describes as a “large buildup of payables”.

The audit comes as part of a broader fiscal effort by the government, which includes recent amendments to the Public Financial Management Act.

The revised law introduces a debt ceiling of 45 percent of GDP to be achieved by 2035, requires annual primary budget surpluses of no less than 1.5 percent of GDP, and establishes an independent Fiscal Council to provide oversight.

The audit is expected to conclude in June, ahead of the IMF Executive Board’s review of Ghana’s next tranche disbursement of $370 million.

If approved, this would bring the country’s total receipts under the current programme to $2.3 billion.

Dr Forson’s announcement followed the end of a two-week IMF review mission, which concluded with Staff-Level Agreement between the Fund and the government.

The Minister described the agreement as a step forward in efforts to restore macroeconomic stability and put public debt on a more sustainable path.

Meanwhile, arrears in the energy sector which have long posed challenges to the budget will be addressed separately through new payment systems.

These include the cash waterfall mechanism and a single treasury account structure designed to regularise payments to independent power producers.

In a related measure, the Ministry of Finance will begin publishing quarterly rankings of Ministries, Departments and Agencies, based on their compliance with new spending rules.