Ghana

Ghana Moves to Evacuate 300 Citizens From South Africa as Ablakwa's Foreign Ministry Steps Into the Continental Anti-Immigrant Cycle

Ghana’s Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has confirmed that the government will evacuate 300 Ghanaian citizens from South Africa following the latest wave of anti-immigrant violence and protests targeting migrants from across the African continent. The 300 had registered for assistance with the Ghana High Commission in Pretoria. Several other African governments have issued similar advisories, with Ghana the first to commit to a defined evacuation figure.

The Ablakwa Foreign Ministry response is notable for its operational specificity. Ghana has been one of the more deliberate Foreign Service operations in West Africa over the past two years, with the Mahama administration prioritising consular capacity and diaspora protection as visible deliverables. The 300-citizen evacuation is the public test of whether that institutional investment translates into actual operational execution under pressure. The diplomatic dimension — Ghana’s previous summoning of South Africa’s top envoy after a Ghanaian national was publicly challenged over immigration status — sets the bilateral context.

Ghana's Mobile Money Sector Stages May Day Sports Activities — the Quiet Choreography of an Industry Becoming Politically Indispensable

Ghana’s mobile money stakeholders staged May Day sports activities earlier this month, in what looks at first glance like routine corporate-citizenship programming but reads, on second pass, as the choreography of an industry that has become politically indispensable in Ghana’s economy and is now positioning itself accordingly.

Mobile money in Ghana is no longer a sector — it is infrastructure. The MTN MoMo, Vodafone Cash, and AirtelTigo Money networks collectively process transaction volumes that exceed the formal banking sector’s reach by orders of magnitude. They handle remittance flows from diaspora to family, support small-business commerce that the conventional banking system has historically under-served, and operate the financial-inclusion architecture that Ghana’s lower-income households depend on for daily economic life. The May Day positioning of mobile money agents alongside the traditional labour-movement framing is the industry signalling that its workforce — the agents, the supervisors, the customer-service personnel — are part of the broader Ghanaian labour conversation.

Mahama Inspects Akosombo-Gyakiti Road and Promises Akwamu Communities Accelerated Development — the Politics of Showing Up Where Previous Governments Did Not

President John Mahama’s inspection of the Akosombo-Gyakiti road, accompanied by an assurance of accelerated development for the Akwamu communities the road serves, is the kind of presidential travel that distinguishes the current NDC administration from the political grammar that preceded it. Mahama has been deliberately visible in rural and peri-urban Ghana since taking office, and the Akwamu visit is consistent with the broader political theory of his return to the presidency.

Mahama's Big Day: Constitutional Review Decision, West Africa's First PET-CT, and 300 Ghanaians Coming Home from South Africa

President John Mahama is chairing a special Cabinet meeting today, May 14, to decide the government’s official position on the Constitutional Review Committee’s recommendations — closing out a process that has been working through the Attorney General’s office for months. Government spokesperson Felix Kwakye Ofosu confirmed the draft position paper is ready; what emerges from Cabinet today will be the formal framing of any constitutional amendments the Mahama administration intends to push.

Ghana evacuates 300 nationals from South Africa as xenophobic violence escalates; Foreign Minister Ablakwa pledges 'no Ghanaian abandoned'

President John Dramani Mahama has approved the evacuation of 300 Ghanaians from South Africa following a renewed wave of xenophobic attacks targeting African nationals in the country. Ghana’s Ambassador to South Africa Benjamin Quashie confirmed the voluntary repatriation programme this week, and Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa pledged that no Ghanaian living abroad in distress would be abandoned. Arrangements are being made for additional repatriations as the situation develops.

Ghana fuel prices set to rise May 16, government likely to sign IMF Policy Coordination Instrument after ECF Programme ends 2026

Ghana fuel prices are set to rise from May 16, with reporting suggesting that the government is weighing a possible extension of its existing pricing intervention against the imported cost of fuel. The pricing adjustment sits inside a broader fiscal conversation: Ghana is likely to sign up to an IMF Policy Coordination Instrument after the current Extended Credit Facility Programme concludes in 2026, signalling continued engagement with the Fund without a fresh financing arrangement.

Ghana's banking sector capital adequacy climbs to 22.07 per cent as supervisory framework tightens

Ghana’s banking sector capital adequacy ratio reached 22.07 per cent in early 2026, up from 14 per cent at end-2024 and well above the international Basel requirement of 13 per cent. The Bank of Ghana’s supervisory framework, tightened through 2025 alongside the country’s broader macroeconomic stabilisation, has produced a banking system that international assessors now regard as among the better-capitalised in West Africa.

The non-performing loan trajectory tells the same story from a different angle. NPLs fell from 22 per cent at end-2024 to 18.9 per cent by close-2025, with a target of 10 per cent by end-2026. The supervisory focus has shifted from volume of credit to quality of credit, with the Bank of Ghana enforcing tighter governance expectations on bank boards, stricter anti-money-laundering compliance, and more granular operational-resilience requirements.

Ghana's cedi gains, reserves, and rate cuts hold the recovery line as 2026 outlook firms

The Bank of Ghana’s recovery narrative held through the first quarter of 2026 and remains the most consequential African economic story for diaspora observers tracking the corridor. The cedi appreciated roughly 41 per cent across 2025, ranking among the strongest-performing emerging-market currencies. Gross international reserves rose from US$9.1 billion at end-2024 to US$13.8 billion at close-2025, climbing further to US$14.5 billion by February 2026 — the highest reserve position Ghana has recorded.

Ghana's gold-backed reserve law tries to lock in the recovery against political turnover

Parliament passed the Ghana National Reserve Accumulation Programme in February 2026, enshrining in law the gold-backed reserve strategy that has underpinned the country’s currency stabilisation. The legislation locks the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme into a statutory framework, making the practice resistant to reversal by a future administration that might prefer a different reserve mix.

The mechanism is straightforward but consequential. The Bank of Ghana purchases gold locally from miners in cedi, refines the metal, and exports it to build foreign-exchange reserves. The structure converts domestic mineral production into reserve assets without burning through the country’s hard-currency receipts, and it gives Ghanaian miners a domestic buyer at fair value. The combined effect has been a reserve build that international rating agencies have repeatedly noted as a structural improvement.

Ghana summons SA envoy as xenophobic confrontations escalate

The week from Accra.

SA envoy summoned over diaspora confrontation

Ghana has summoned South Africa’s top envoy after a Ghanaian national was publicly challenged over immigration status, part of a broader anti-migrant pressure cycle in South Africa that has now drawn in Nigeria, Kenya, and other African states. Pretoria’s Ministry of Defence and Security has called recent viral videos of confrontations “fake,” but the diplomatic pressure across the continent has been real and rising.