Ghana Continues Talks with Local Pension Funds

In a request to mitigate an ongoing economic crisis, Ghana’s Government has arranged a staff-level agreement for a $3 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The fund has stated that the IMF board will only support the deal if Ghana undergoes thorough debt restructuring.

The finance ministry established a plan to exchange local bonds for longer-dated maturities in early December. But behind the deal met stiff opposition. Hence, the Government stated it would exempt pension funds from the restructuring program.

Expanding the Deadline

Late on Dec. 24, the government expanded the deadline for the exchange to Jan. 16 from Dec. 30. Earlier it extended the deadline from Dec. 19. It also reported a change to the debt exchange, with eight more changes coming soon.

The finance ministry of the west African nation said in a Q&A document that the participation in the domestic debt exchange needed to be higher, the perennity of the Government’s efforts to resolve the current crisis, and the expected international financial support would be endangered.

It added this would strain the Government’s capacity to honor its commitments and refund its debt.

As stated by the most recent central bank figures, Ghana’s public debt was 467.4 billion cedis ($46.7 billion) in September 2022, of which 42% was domestic debt.

Ghana on Tuesday demanded a restructuring of its bilateral debt through the Common Framework platform placed up by the Group of 20 major economies, a source familiar with the situation informed Reuters.