President John Dramani Mahama
The first budget of the second term of President John Dramani Mahama was presented by Minister of Finance Dr Cassiel Ato Forson in Parliament on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.
The public was awaiting the budget to see how President Mahama was going to fulfil some of his major campaign promises, including the 24-Hour Economy policy, the No-Academic-Fee policy, paying assembly members, the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) programme, the sanitary pads initiative, and the cancellation of some taxes.
The cancellation of the taxes, including the COVID-19 Levy, the Betting Tax, and the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy), was announced by the Finance Minister.
Not only that, Dr Ato Forson, during his presentation, touched virtually on all the policies and programmes and even made budgetary allocations for them.
Below are some of the key policies of Mahama and the budgetary allocations made for them:
1. A Cedi equivalent of US$279 million as a revolving fund for the Ghana Gold Board (GOLDBOD) to be able to purchase and export at least 3 tonnes of gold per week from small-scale miners.
2. GH¢13.85 billion for the Big Push Programme.
3. GH¢499.8 million has been allocated for the No-Academic-Fee policy for all first-year students in public tertiary institutions under the ‘No-Fees-Stress’ initiative.
4. GH¢292.4 million to commence the distribution of free sanitary pads to female students in primary and secondary schools.
5. GH¢242.5 million to support victims of the Akosombo dam spillage.
6. GH¢200 million to support the victims of the tidal wave disaster that recently displaced residents of Agavedzi and surrounding communities in the Ketu South constituency.
7. GH¢3.5 billion for the Free SHS programme and the uncapping of the GETFund, making available an additional GH¢4.1 billion to the GETFund, specifically for financing the free secondary education programme and other related expenditures.
8. GH¢564.6 million for the comprehensive provision of free curricula-based textbooks.
9. An increase in the School Feeding Programme budgetary allocation from GH¢1.344 billion to GH¢1.788 billion, representing a 33% increase. The allocation for 2025 reflects an increase in the feeding cost per meal per child per day from GH¢1.50 to GH¢2.00, representing a 33.3% rise.
10. The uncapping of the National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL) and the allocation of GH¢9.93 billion for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
11. The uncapping of the Road Fund and the programming of GH¢2.81 billion for the Ghana Road Fund to be used solely for road maintenance. This represents an increase of 155.5% over the 2024 allocation of GH¢1.1 billion.
12. GH¢7.51 billion to the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF). In accordance with the decentralisation policy objective, the government proposes to Parliament that a minimum of 80% of the funds should be sent directly to the District Assemblies to spur economic growth at the district level and deepen decentralisation.
13. GH¢1.5 billion for the Agriculture for Economic Transformation Agenda (AETA), of which the Feed Ghana Programme, Ghana Grains Development Project, Vegetable Development Project, and Nkokor Nketenkete are all key components.
14. GH¢51.3 million as seed funding for the establishment of the Women’s Development Bank.
15. GH¢300 million for the National Apprenticeship Programme.
16. GH¢100 million for the ‘Adwumawura’ Programme.
17. GH¢100 million for the National Coders Programme.
18. GH¢100 million has been allocated for the payment of monthly allowances to all Assembly Members.
BAI/SEA
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