The Chairman of Parliament’s Finance Committee has defended the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government’s limited job creation in its first year in office, attributing the shortfall to what he described as a deteriorated economic foundation inherited from the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration.
Isaac Adongo, Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolgatanga Central, made the remarks in an interview on Radio Tamale, acknowledging widespread frustration among NDC supporters while arguing that restoring economic stability had to take priority over large-scale employment programmes.
“I really sympathize with our grassroots and colleagues,” he said, before outlining what he described as the structural barriers his party’s government faced upon taking office in January 2025.
Adongo argued that a weakened private sector and an unstable exchange rate severely limited conditions for business expansion and new hiring. “The private sector was in shambles, the exchange rate was all over the place, and there were no funds to expand businesses,” he said. He added that fiscal discipline was a non-negotiable starting point. “The government had to be disciplined in its expenditure,” he noted.
The lawmaker also disclosed that the constraints extended into public sector recruitment, with his government unable to grant financial clearances to certain institutions seeking to hire. “Financial clearance for certain institutions to recruit Ghanaians, including our grassroots, could not be done,” he stated.
Adongo, however, expressed cautious optimism that conditions are turning, citing recent approvals of financial clearances as an early sign of improving fiscal headroom. “It is only recently that financial clearance has been given, and we are hoping for economic stability,” he said.
The NPP Minority in Parliament disputes the inherited economy narrative. The Minority has argued that the government inherited a revenue-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio of 16 percent, but that this fell to 11 percent by the third quarter of 2025, describing the gap as evidence of expenditure constraints, salary arrears, and funding backlogs attributable to the current administration’s management rather than its inheritance.
The debate over Ghana’s economic starting point has become one of the sharpest political fault lines of the Mahama administration’s first year, with both sides presenting competing data sets and economic narratives ahead of what is expected to be an intensifying political season.
