The mid-year economic reset: How 2026 budget review is reshaping government, business, investment and household prosperity

In an earlier piece for this column, I wrote about Ananse — the trickster who built webs not to trap flies, but to acquire stories, and with them, control over what the world came to believe.

The health of an economy is judged by macroeconomic variables, namely, GDP growth rate, unemployment rate, inflation rate, exchange rate, interest rate, national budget balance and trade balance.

Under the glaring studio lights, a sixteen/seventeen-year-old contestant’s fingers hover over a plastic buzzer.

Africa’s drive towards a more connected, digitally enabled single market has taken another significant step forward with the launch establishment of the AfCFTA Digital Trade Corridor.

KEY POLICY MESSAGE

“To the wise, a warning is a blessing; to the fool, it is an insult.” – African proverb

The book-build and the pricing gap The Ministry of Finance (MoF) opened the book-build for a new four-year Government of Ghana (GoG) bond on September 1, 2026, with initial price guidance set at 11.5 to 12percent. Bidding closes on September 3, settlement is scheduled for September 7, and the paper matures on September 2, 2030. No size target has been disclosed, consistent with the Ministry’s recent practice of letting the order book determine the quantum raised rather than pre-committing to an amount.

In banking, the two things that stand out for me are the huge volumes of transactions that are being done online through internet, electronic or virtual banking. Nobody imagined that the rate of patronage of virtual banking could be so overwhelming. The other one is the gradual acceptance of remote working from home. Although this has been a regular feature among certain departments in banking, it has now been formally accepted as another means to achieve the objectives of the institutions.