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The Deputy Minister of Finance, Thomas Nyarko Ampem, has said that about GH¢13 billion of claims passed on by the previous administration to the current government have been disallowed following a nationwide audit.
According to him, the government had made provision in the 2025 Budget to clear GH¢13.7 billion out of the total GH¢67 billion arrears inherited from the previous administration, with the remaining payments scheduled to be spread over the next four years.
However, during an audit of the outstanding obligations commissioned by the Ministry of Finance using the Audit Service and leading accounting firms, GH¢13 billion has been disallowed.
Speaking in a radio interview with Accra-based Citi FM on Wednesday [Oct 8, 2025], Mr Nyarko Ampem said, “Government is dealing with the arrears. In fact, one of the things the Minister presented to Cabinet yesterday was the audited arrears,” he said.
“We commissioned the Audit Service and the accounting firms to audit the arrears stock that we inherited, and that work has been completed. About GH¢13 billion has been disallowed, and so that is some savings.”
He added that details of the disallowed arrears would be made public once the Cabinet concludes a review.
According to him, the government had made provision in the 2025 Budget to clear GH¢13.7 billion out of the total GH¢67 billion arrears inherited, with payments scheduled to be spread over the next four years.
“We have started processing the arrears for payment, and we are strictly paying those that have been validated by the auditors,” Mr Nyarko Ampem stated.
He disclosed that the government also intends to publish lists of claims rejected, validated, or still pending after the audit exercise to improve transparency in the arrears-clearing process.
“The agreement we had with the auditors is that we will publish all those that have been rejected,” he said.
“We will also publish those that are still pending, sometimes because the contractors have not been reached or the required documents are not available.”
Mr Nyarko Ampem stressed that while arrears owed to contractors, public-sector workers, and compensation claimants are being addressed, only verified debts will be settled as part of the fiscal clean-up.
