{"id":282687,"date":"2025-11-14T14:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T14:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/282687\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T14:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T14:12:08","slug":"government-to-settle-all-contractor-arrears-in-four-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/282687\/","title":{"rendered":"Government to settle all contractor arrears in four years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/business\/Government-to-settle-all-contractor-arrears-in-four-years-Ato-Forson-2009505?gallery=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/98418965.295.jpg\" alt=\"Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson\" title=\"Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson\" width=\"295\" height=\"180\" \/> <\/a>Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson<\/p>\n<p id=\"article-123\">The Minister of Finance, Dr <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/people\/person.php?ID=2581\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cassiel Ato Forson<\/a>, has announced that the government intends to clear all arrears owed to contractors within four years.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, as monitored by <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/people\/person.php?ID=3718\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">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<p>He explained that this is why the government is implementing a phased approach to settle all outstanding arrears.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/business\/Government-targets-GH-268-1-billion-revenue-in-2026-2009474\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Government targets GH\u00a2268.1 billion revenue in 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\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<p>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<p>\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<p>SP\/MA<\/p>\n<p>#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&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-282687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}