<\/p>\n
The Director of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana, Prof. Peter Quartey is worried that Ghana\u2019s debt levels may pose a challenge to its move for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) support.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Finance on Monday announced that the IMF delegation is currently undertaking a comprehensive debt sustainability analysis of the country.<\/p>\n
Acknowledging that the IMF has various support schemes the country could benefit from, the Professor of Economics is disturbed the country\u2019s unsustainable debt levels raise more concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor IMF, they require that you have a sustainable debt level or a medium-term plan to ensure that, your debt levels become sustainable. They have been sounding this warning, but Ghana\u2019s debt sustainability threshold is not good.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Finance has confirmed that its officials and that of the Bank of Ghana have commenced a comprehensive debt sustainability analysis with the IMF for a $3 billion support programme.<\/p>\n
A statement from the ministry said: \u201cthe Government of Ghana is putting together a comprehensive post-Covid-19 economic programme which will form the basis for the IMF negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe programme seeks to establish a macro-fiscal path that ensures debt sustainability and macroeconomic stability, underpinned by key structural reforms and social protection.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ministry added that it is \u201coptimistic about making progress in our discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGovernment remains committed, and shall continue to actively engage all stakeholders, both public and private, in a clear and transparent manner as we seek to fast-track this process.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, Prof. Peter Quartey fears, \u201cwe are at a risk of debt distress as anything above 60 percent raises a red flag. Currently, we have hit the threshold, so going in for borrowing will be tough for us\u201d, he said on Eyewitness News<\/strong>.<\/p>\n An IMF team is in Ghana until October 7 to continue discussions with the government on policies and reforms that could be supported by a lending arrangement.<\/p>\n The meeting with the IMF comes amid concerns that Ghana is about to start talks with domestic bondholders on a restructuring of its local-currency debt.<\/p>\n News reports<\/strong> indicate that major local investors, including local banks and pension funds, are preparing to engage in discussion on debt reorganisation.<\/p>\n This could entail the extension of maturities and haircuts on principal and interest payments.<\/p>\n Ghana\u2019s debt-service costs in the first half amounted to GH\u00a220.5 billion, equivalent to 68 percent of tax revenue.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Director of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana, Prof. Peter Quartey is worried that Ghana\u2019s debt levels may pose a challenge to its move for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) support. The Ministry of Finance on Monday announced that the IMF delegation is currently undertaking a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1129378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1211547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1211547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1211547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1211547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1211547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}