Ghana is a country that is promising a lot but is always under-delivering; the government hasn’t been able to turn the economy around”, it said in its latest report on Ghana
According to the 2022 Mid-Year Budget Review, interest payments, which dominated government expenditure for the first half of 2022, stood at GH¢20.4 billion, representing 4.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This was higher than the targeted amount of GHC¢19.05 billion.
The government spent about ¢10.6 billion to pay interest on loans in the first quarter of this year, with a chunk being used to service domestic debt.
The finance and economic expert warned that the worst thing that could happen to Ghana at this point as the economy strives to rebound will be to default on debt repayments and therefore admonishing the government to take drastic measures to help tame any unlikely situation of such.
The Bank of Ghana's data indicates, it secured GH¢470.4 million for the debt instrument, about 76% less than the targeted amount.
The domestic debt is a component of the total debt stock which stood at GH¢391.9 billion (equivalent of US$ 55.1 billion) as of March 2022, data from the Bank of Ghana indicate.
The issue of restructuring debt is a very complicated issue especially with the private sector and the Eurobond etc. We need to decide among ourselves on what type of structure that will be useful to us. We have essentially about 50/50 with regards to domestic and external debt”, Ken Ofori-Atta expressed.
According to Bloomberg, the yield on the country’s $1 billion bond maturing in 2026 declined for the sixth consecutive day, as President Nana Akufo-Addo reiterated government’s commitment to get the economy back on track.