A flagship Mahama economic policy goes live
On 13 May 2026, the Government of Ghana opened the public application portal for Fund24, the financing arm of President John Dramani Mahama's flagship 24-Hour Economy and Accelerated Export Development Programme — known by its working name 24H+. The portal at 24hplus.gov.gh lets eligible Ghanaians apply directly for start-up business loans ranging from GH¢5,000 to GH¢500,000, with the first disbursements expected within weeks of submission.
Eligibility is deliberately broad. The headline group is Ghanaians aged 18 to 35 — the youth segment the Mahama administration committed to during the 2024 campaign — but applications are also open to farmers, smallholder cooperatives, established traders, investors, manufacturers and trade associations. The programme explicitly prioritises cooperatives and registered trade associations for the equity-financing window.
The financing mechanics
Fund24 is not a single pot of cash. It combines two distinct instruments:
- Concessionary financing routed through the Development Bank Ghana (DBG). This window provides debt finance at below-market interest rates with grace periods aligned to typical business ramp-up timelines.
- Equity financing routed through the Venture Capital Trust Fund (VCTF). The equity window targets businesses that are too early for conventional bank credit but can demonstrate a credible growth path and a willingness to take in an outside shareholder.
The split allows the programme to serve very different stages of entrepreneurship — from a market trader expanding a single shopfront to a small manufacturer building a second production line — without forcing every applicant into the same product.
The wider 24-Hour Economy programme
Fund24 is one element of the broader 24H+ programme, which the Mahama administration is positioning as the single largest economic intervention of its term. Government documents target 1.7 million jobs over four years and seek to mobilise approximately $4 billion of combined public and private capital over the same horizon. The 2026 budget allocated GH¢100 million specifically for the operational stand-up of the new 24-Hour Economy Authority, the statutory body that will oversee delivery.
The Authority itself was approved by Cabinet in January 2026, with the establishing legislation now working its way through Parliament. Until the Authority is fully constituted, the programme is administered through an interim implementation unit reporting to the Office of the President.
Early implementers and sector focus
Several public-sector institutions have already moved to 24/7 operations as proof-of-concept anchors for the programme. The Ghana Publishing Company was the first; Tema port and Takoradi port followed, with both ports now operating around the clock to compress vessel-turn times and increase capacity utilisation.
The sector focus for private-sector participation reads as a deliberate map of Ghanaian export potential: agriculture, fisheries, manufacturing, agro-ecological parks, pharmaceutical innovation, textile manufacturing, air-cargo logistics, and creative-industry academies. Beyond cash, applicants joining the programme get access to free digital-skills training at TVET centres across the 16 regions, internships with 24H+ partner companies, and a package of tax incentives that includes reduced corporate income tax for two-shift and three-shift companies, priority utility access, import-tax exemptions on capital machinery, VAT relief, export rebates, and location-based tax holidays for manufacturing, ICT, agro-processing and tourism startups.
Why Mobile Money matters here
The mobile-money angle is direct. Ghana abolished the 1% E-Levy on Mobile Money transfers in April 2025, removing a real friction on small-business digital payments. With the levy gone, MTN MoMo, AirtelTigo Money and Telecel Cash become the natural disbursement and repayment rail for a programme like Fund24 — particularly for the GH¢5,000 to GH¢50,000 ticket sizes that are too small to justify a traditional bank-branch relationship. See the live MTN MoMo Ghana fee tariff for current cash-out costs that recipients will face on the way to liquidity.