Ghana Seeks to Curb Wage Burden on Deficit, Mahama Says

Ghana, West Africa’s second-biggest economy, needs to curb wage costs that are “squeezing out critical investments” after the budget deficit jumped to almost double the target in 2012, President John Dramani Mahama said.

Spending on civil-service salaries currently takes 60.9 percent of revenue after a pay increase for state workers, Mahama told lawmakers in the capital, Accra, today. In three years, the cost rose to 8 billion cedis ($4.2 billion) from 2.5 billion cedis, he said.