Ghana has taken a formal step toward independent fiscal oversight with President John Dramani Mahama nominating five professionals to serve on the country’s newly established Fiscal Council, drawing praise from a leading policy think tank as a structural turning point for public financial management.
The nominations, announced by the Presidency on April 8, 2026, follow the amendment of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921) through the Public Financial Management (Amendment) Act, 2025 (Act 1136), which created the legal basis for an independent oversight body to monitor government borrowing and spending.
Dr Emmanuel Oteng Kumah has been nominated as chairperson of the five-member council. The remaining members are Dr Henry Akpenamawu Kofi Wampah, a former governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG); Associate Professor Patrick Opoku Asuming, representing academia; J. Kweku Bedu-Addo, a former public policy expert at the Ministry of Finance; and Leslie Dwight Mensah, a research fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), filling the seat reserved for a representative from a research think tank.
The IMANI Center for Policy and Education (IMANI), which played a direct role in shaping the council’s design, described the move as a milestone in Ghana’s economic recovery. “The establishment of the Fiscal Council marks a critical milestone in Ghana’s recovery journey. It reinforces the country’s commitment to prudent economic governance, ensuring that public debt remains sustainable while preserving critical investments in social services and infrastructure,” IMANI said.
IMANI contributed technical expertise to the conceptualisation and design of the Fiscal Council, working alongside the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), while also engaging Parliament, government officials and civil society groups to build consensus around the need for stronger fiscal oversight.
The council’s creation comes at a pivotal moment for Ghana’s economy. The country entered a three-billion-dollar Extended Credit Facility (ECF) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in May 2023 following a debt default in December 2022, and has since been implementing fiscal consolidation reforms. President Mahama confirmed in February 2026 that Ghana was on course to complete the IMF programme by April 2026, citing improvements in key economic indicators including easing inflation, strengthened foreign reserves and renewed investor confidence.
The Fiscal Council is designed to serve as an independent watchdog to monitor government spending and borrowing decisions, forming part of the Mahama administration’s broader strategy to address persistent fiscal challenges that have historically led to budget overruns, mounting debt and macroeconomic instability.
IMANI stressed that the council’s value lies in its institutional character rather than the goodwill of any single administration, arguing that strong oversight mechanisms are what ultimately sustain economic progress beyond individual policy cycles. For Ghana, the body represents an attempt to anchor fiscal discipline in law and independent expertise, reducing the risk of a return to the borrowing patterns that led to the 2022 debt crisis.
