The Chairman of the Constitutional Review Committee, Prof Henry Kwasi Prempeh, has strongly criticised the practice of paying retired public officials salaries.

According to him, the practice, which he has described as ridiculous, isn’t an act that is practiced in other countries across the globe.

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His comments come in response to concerns about Ghana’s ballooning wage bill, which continues to strain the country’s finances.

“We must scrap the ‘retirement on salary’ compensation practices in our public sector. Do we know any other place in the world where this sort of thing happens as commonly as it does here? We are just ridiculous!” he wrote on Facebook on March 17, 2026.

According to the Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, Ghana spent 44 percent of its total tax revenue on public sector wages in 2025, far above the ECOWAS-recommended threshold of 35 percent.

He disclosed that the government generated GH¢183 billion in tax revenue within the period under review.

Out of this amount, statutory obligations, including transfers to DACF, GETFund, NHIL, and debt servicing, consumed GH¢122.1 billion.

This left the government with only GH¢61.9 billion to manage its expenditure.

However, the total public sector wage bill alone amounted to GH¢78.9 billion, exceeding the remaining revenue.

This resulted in a financing gap of about GH¢17 billion, forcing the government to borrow in order to pay salaries.

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Dr Forson further stressed that the combined cost of wages, debt servicing, and statutory transfers now exceeds total tax revenue, warning that this trend is crowding out critical government spending in other sectors.



MAG/AE

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