{"id":286085,"date":"2025-11-15T11:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T11:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/286085\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T11:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T11:51:10","slug":"government-to-settle-all-contractor-arrears-in-four-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/286085\/","title":{"rendered":"Government to settle all contractor arrears in four years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Minister <\/a>Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson<\/p>\n

The Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson<\/a>, has announced that the government intends to clear all arrears owed to contractors within four years.<\/p>\n

According to him, the government inherited a backlog of arrears amounting to GH\u00a268 billion, which has significantly contributed to Ghana\u2019s fiscal deficit of 3.9% of GDP.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, as monitored by GhanaWeb<\/a> Business on November 14, 2025, Dr Ato Forson emphasised that making full payment in a single year would have dire consequences for the broader economy. <\/p>\n

He explained that this is why the government is implementing a phased approach to settle all outstanding arrears.<\/p>\n

Government targets GH\u00a2268.1 billion revenue in 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe inherited GH\u00a268 billion, and that is what gave us the fiscal deficit of 3.9% of GDP. The government cannot pay GH\u00a268 billion in one year. So, first I needed to subject these claims to an audit to validate them and determine the strategy I would use to clear the arrears. In doing so, in the 2025 budget, I programmed GH\u00a213.8 billion for arrears payments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He further explained that the first step taken by the government was to subject all claims to a comprehensive audit to ensure their validity before deciding on an appropriate payment strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far, I have paid about GH\u00a212 billion, leaving approximately GH\u00a21.8 billion outstanding. I cannot exceed the GH\u00a213.8 billion approved by Parliament. In the 2026 budget, I programmed GH\u00a225 billion, which I will pay, and then settle the remainder in 2027 and possibly 2028. I believe that within four years, I should be able to clear all the arrears,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

SP\/MA<\/p>\n

#TrendingGH: What Ghanaians want from the 2026 budget:<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson The Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, has announced that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-286085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}