Government suspends external debt payments

The Ministry of Finance has announced a suspension of all payments of external debts pending an orderly restructuring of the affected obligations.

A statement by the Finance Ministry on Monday, December 19, stated that the suspension will include the payments on our Eurobonds; our commercial term loans; and most of the country’s bilateral debt.

The suspension, according to the statement will, however, not affect the payments of Ghana’s multilateral debt, new debts (whether multilateral or otherwise) contracted after 19th December 2022 or debts related to certain short-term trade facilities.

“We are also evaluating certain specific debts related to projects with the highest socio-economic impact for Ghana which may have to be excluded. This suspension is an interim emergency measure pending future agreements with all relevant creditors,” parts of the statement read.

The Government launched the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme on December 5, 2022, which affects the Government’s bonds listed on the Ghana Fixed Income Market (GFIM).

The Ministry of Finance (MoF), on Saturday, announced the extension of the Debt Exchange Programme to December 30, 2022. The debt exchange was to deal with the country’s economic crisis.

The Debt Exchange Programme which was expected to expire on Monday, December 19, 2022, has been extended with a contemplated settlement date of Friday, January 6, 2023.

The Ministry of Finance, in a statement, explained that the extension comes on the heels of the announcement of the Staff Level Agreement (SLA) between the government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on December 13, 2022.