<\/p>\n
Ken Ofori-Atta<\/strong><\/p>\n Government of Ghana says it is finding it very difficult to accept Moody\u2019s downgrade of Ghana\u2019s credit rating.<\/p>\n The government has therefore rejected Moody\u2019s downgrade of the country\u2019s credit rating.<\/p>\n Moody\u2019s downgraded Ghana\u2019s long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings to Caa1 from B3, and changed the outlook to stable from negative.<\/p>\n It said the new rating reflects the woes of Ghana in fixing its liquidity and debt challenges.<\/p>\n Moody further attributed the rating to the country\u2019s ineffective revenue generation.<\/p>\n According to Moody, \u201cThe downgrade to Caa1 reflects the increasingly difficult task the government faces addressing its intertwined liquidity and debt challenges. Weak revenue generation constrains government\u2019s budget flexibility, and tight funding conditions on international markets have forced the government to rely on costly debt with shorter maturity.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the Finance Ministry in a statement issued Sunday February 6, 2022 said it is puzzled by Moody\u2019s rating of the country, albeit the recent fiscal consolidation measures announced by the government.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are at odds to understand Moody\u2019s assertion of the deterioration of Ghana\u2019s institutional strength, given Ghana\u2019s reputation as a beacon of democracy in Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe government of Ghana is therefore completely puzzled by the decision to downgrade Ghana\u2019s credit rating to Caa1, despite the series of progressive engagements we had with the team from Moody\u2019s, the quality of data supplied, as well as the medium-term economic and fiscal focus of the government, underpinned by key fiscal consolidation reforms such as the policy decision to cut expenditure by 20%, as recently announced by the Minister of Finance,\u201d government added in the statement.<\/p>\n The Finance Ministry said Moody failed to agree to its appeal and went ahead with its rating.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, Moody\u2019s rejected our appeal and went ahead with the downgrade despite all the concerns raised, which we believe were not factored into their decision.\u201d<\/p>\n The Finance Ministry has raised concerns with Lucie Vila, the leader of Moody\u2019s team that downgraded the country\u2019s credit rating.<\/p>\n According to the Ministry, Lucie Villa did not properly understand Ghana\u2019s credit story.<\/p>\n \u201cPrior to the announcement, between 28th January to 3rd February 2022, Moody\u2019s virtually engaged senior government officials of the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana on various issues. The Moody\u2019s team was led by Lucie Villa (Lead Analyst on Ghana at Moody\u2019s) and supervised by Matt Robinson. It is worthy to note that Lucie Villa only recently (beginning of January 2022) took over as the primary analyst covering Ghana for Moody\u2019s. We are very concerned that Ms.<\/p>\n Villa may not properly understand and evaluate Ghana\u2019s deepening credit story since obtaining our first credit rating back in 2003. She also has not visited the country since assuming the role and as such this downgrade at this critical time was based entirely on a desktop exercise, virtual discussions and what we believe to be the omission of critical data provided.\u201d<\/p>\n Regardless of the government\u2019s hurdles in overturning Moody\u2019s rating, the Finance Ministry says government will continue to pursue ongoing efforts at revitalizing the economy amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n It also says government remains absolutely confident in \u201cour resolve to overcome the current chalenges with fiscal discipline and growth, in line with the president\u2019s vision to build a strong, resilient and prosperous economy and a Ghana Beyond Aid.\u201d<\/p>\n By Vincent Kubi<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ken Ofori-Atta Government of Ghana says it is finding it very difficult to accept Moody\u2019s downgrade of Ghana\u2019s credit rating. The government has therefore rejected Moody\u2019s downgrade of the country\u2019s credit rating. Moody\u2019s downgraded Ghana\u2019s long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings to Caa1 from B3, and changed the outlook to stable from negative. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":156346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[1560,2144,250,225,4428,1824,4105],"class_list":["post-980695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-credit","tag-downgrade","tag-ghanas","tag-govt","tag-moodys","tag-rating","tag-rejects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980695","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=980695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=980695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=980695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=980695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}