By: Franklin ASARE-DONKOH
The Minister of Finance, Dr. Cassiel Ato Baah Forson, has refuted the New Patriotic Party’s claim that they left a healthy economy because Ghana recorded a 5.7 percent economic growth in 2024.
According to him, the 5.7 percent (5.7%) economic growth recorded in 2024 was largely driven by illegal small-scale mining, also known in the Ghanaian parlance as galamsey.
Dr. Ato Baah Forson, during his presentation of the 2025 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana on the floor of Parliament on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, outlined the key growth drivers, with a strong emphasis on the mining and quarrying sector.
He backed his claim by citing provisional 2024 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistics published by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on March 10, 2025. Dr. Ato Forson further noted that the mining and quarrying sector, which includes both legal and illegal gold mining, recorded a remarkable growth rate of 19.1%.
This surge in activity played a pivotal role in the overall economic expansion.
“Mr. Speaker, provisional 2024 GDP statistics published by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on 10th March 2025 show that overall real GDP grew by 5.7% in 2024, compared to the growth rate of 3.1% recorded over the same period in 2023. The key driver of this growth was largely mining and quarrying, mainly gold, including (illegal mining) galamsey, which recorded a growth of 19.1%. But galamsey growth cannot be sustainable,” he reiterated.
