- SEC’s 2025 Accounts Expose Funding Challenge as Costs Rise and Government Support Retreats
Ghana’s Securities and Exchange Commission swung to a GH¢3.27 million deficit in 2025, reversing a GH¢21.41 million surplus a year earlier, after a sharp reduction in government support combined with rising personnel and administrative costs to outweigh stronger income from securities-market transactions.
The regulator generated total income of GH¢61.24 million, down from GH¢75.86 million in 2024, while operating expenditure climbed to GH¢64.51 million from GH¢54.45 million. The Commission consequently moved from a substantial headline surplus in 2024 to a deficit in 2025, which it said was financed from its reserves.
The comparison, however, is complicated by an unusually large government transfer in the previous year. SEC said the 2024 surplus included GH¢20.00 million in government support, reducing to just GH¢1.10 million in 2025, and noted that its underlying 2024 surplus from operations was only about GH¢1.41 million once the government contribution was stripped out.
That distinction provides a more nuanced picture of the regulator’s finances, because the 2025 deficit was not simply the result of collapsing market-derived revenue. Operating revenue actually increased 2.71% to GH¢47.72 million, while investment income rose to GH¢8.81 million and other income more than doubled to GH¢3.62 million, meaning the principal pressure came from the disappearance of exceptional government support alongside faster growth in expenses.
The composition of SEC’s income also reveals how increasingly dependent the regulator has become on activity in Ghana’s secondary capital markets. Transaction levy revenue surged 77.49% to GH¢27.66 million from GH¢15.58 million, accounting for the majority of operating revenue and benefiting from the recovery in trading activity during the year.
That gain was partly offset by an extraordinary collapse in prospectus approval fees, which fell to GH¢3.41 million from GH¢16.15 million, a decline the SEC attributed to the absence of major primary-market issuances.
Licence fees increased to GH¢2.44 million from GH¢1.85 million, market-operator levies rose to GH¢2.85 million, while depository fees climbed to GH¢11.38 million from GH¢10.31 million.
The contrast between booming transaction levies and weak prospectus fees exposes one of the more important structural messages in the accounts. Ghana’s capital market experienced considerable secondary-market activity during 2025, but the regulator earned far less from new securities issuance, suggesting that improved trading liquidity had yet to translate into an equally strong pipeline of companies and institutions raising fresh capital through the market.
SEC itself acknowledged another significant revenue shortfall against its plans, saying overall revenue was 17.11% below its GH¢73.88 million budget. The regulator had budgeted GH¢25.00 million from fees on pension assets, but none of that revenue was collected because implementation modalities were still being discussed with relevant pension-industry stakeholders.
The expense side presents the other half of the funding challenge, with personnel emoluments and other staff costs rising to GH¢44.30 million from GH¢38.70 million, making employees by far the largest expenditure item.
Wages and salaries reached GH¢15.19 million while staff allowances amounted to GH¢16.37 million, alongside pension contributions, medical expenses, incentives, gratuity and other employee-related obligations.
Administrative and programme-delivery expenditure climbed to GH¢19.08 million from GH¢14.63 million, with foreign travel, training and conferences alone accounting for GH¢7.14 million compared with GH¢4.00 million a year earlier. Advertisement and public education cost GH¢2.08 million, conferences, training and marketing GH¢1.52 million, while depreciation and amortisation amounted to GH¢1.70 million.
The spending profile poses an important institutional question for a regulator seeking to deepen Ghana’s capital market while simultaneously increasing its technological and supervisory capacity.
SEC needs skilled staff, investor education, enforcement capability and international regulatory engagement, but the sustainability of those investments ultimately depends on whether market-based revenue can grow sufficiently to support an expanding regulatory mandate without repeatedly drawing on reserves.
The balance sheet remains comparatively strong despite the deficit. Total assets stood at GH¢100.73 million at the end of 2025, down from GH¢103.99 million, while liabilities remained low at GH¢3.84 million and the accumulated fund stood at GH¢96.89 million.
Liquidity nevertheless weakened during the year, with cash and cash equivalents falling to GH¢5.00 million from GH¢7.50 million, while short-term investments declined to GH¢36.00 million from GH¢41.50 million.
Accounts receivable, by contrast, rose to GH¢14.68 million from GH¢10.24 million, including GH¢6.58 million in transaction levies due from market operators and GH¢2.57 million in outstanding depository fees.
Cash-flow figures reinforce the picture, with SEC recording a GH¢6.04 million net operating cash outflow during 2025 compared with a GH¢18.45 million inflow in 2024. A net GH¢3.54 million inflow from investing activities partly cushioned that pressure, leaving closing cash at GH¢5.00 million.
There was no qualification from the external auditors over the accounts. CFA & Associates said the financial statements gave a “true and fair view” of SEC’s financial position and performance under the applicable accounting and statutory framework, while reporting no key audit matters requiring separate disclosure.
The more consequential issue is therefore not solvency, but the sustainability of SEC’s funding model as its regulatory responsibilities expand.
A regulator that relies heavily on transaction-related income benefits when markets are active, but can become exposed when trading weakens or primary-market issuance disappears, making diversification and predictability of funding increasingly important.
SEC entered 2025 with sizeable reserves and ended the year with liabilities amounting to only a small fraction of assets, giving it room to absorb the deficit. The harder question is whether the GH¢3.27 million shortfall proves temporary or signals a wider mismatch between the cost of regulating an increasingly complex capital market and the revenue architecture designed to finance that work.
For Ghana’s ambition to move from a frontier to an emerging capital market, the regulator itself must remain financially strong enough to invest in supervision, technology, enforcement and investor protection.
SEC’s annual report therefore tells a story larger than a single-year deficit: Ghana’s capital market may be recovering, but the institution responsible for policing and developing it now needs a revenue model capable of keeping pace with that recovery.
