By: Edzorna Francis Mensah
The Minister of Finance says out of the total Gh¢97,749,624,691 eligible bonds for tendering, Gh¢82,994,510,128 was successfully tendered during the ongoing Domestic Debt Exchange under Ghana’s Debt Restructure Programme.
This, he said, accounted for about 85 percent of outstanding eligible amounts and meeting the target of 80 percent as expressed in the Memorandum of Exchange.
However, the Eligible Bonds as per the Exchange Memorandum meant an exclusion of Pension Funds and Bonds that were subject to swap mechanisms for monetary and exchange rate policy operations.
This, then brought the eligible bonds for tendering to Gh¢97,749,624,691.
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta in statement to Parliament on Thursday, 16th February, 2023 on Ghana’s Domestic Debt Exchange Programme stressed the fact that, “Government is however mindful that the Gh¢82,994,510,128 bonds that were successfully tendered represents 64% of the outstanding debt stock of Gh¢130billion at the end of December, 2022”.
In addition, “though the external debt restructuring parameters are yet to be determined, the Government on 19th December 2022, also announced a suspension of all debt service payments for certain categories of external debt, pending an orderly restructuring.
The Ministry of Finance formally launched the Domestic Debt Exchange (DDE) on 5th December 2022 seeking to restructure about Gh¢137 billion worth of Government bonds and notes.
As of December 2022, the total outstanding debt (Eligible and non-Eligible Holders) amounted to approximately Gh¢137 billion.
Subsequent extensions of dates and payment of maturities meant that the remaining stock was reduced from Gh¢137 billion to Gh¢130 billion.