Ghana is seeking to seed up its debt restructuring negotiations.
This is according to the country’s finance minister, Mohammed Amin Adam, as the government pushes for debt restructuring negotiations to rework over $13 billion of international bonds.
The West African gold cocoa, and oil producer has been overhauling its debts as it tries to emerge from its worst economic crisis in a generation with the help of a $3 billion International Monetary Fund programme.
The government reached a deal in principle in January to restructure $5.4 billion of loans with official creditors.
It has since commenced formal talks with one bondholder group under non-disclosure agreements.
Finance Minister Mohammed Amin Adam said that the government had received counter-proposals on the debt treatment scenarios from two bondholder groups that would be assessed.
Amin Adam added that “in the coming weeks, government and our advisors will start extensive discussions with bondholder representatives to advance restructuring engagements.”
The minister said the Ghanaian government had concluded negotiations with independent power producers and would be signing an agreement with them over the next two to three weeks.
The independent power producers had rejected a proposal to restructure $1.58 billion in arrears owed them by the Ghanaian government.
They received an interim payment offer in July last year.
This will allow them to continue working with the government towards a permanent resolve to the debt issue.
According to Adam, “the signing of this agreement will allow us to spread the arrears over some years, maybe five years, to provide us relief.”
He added that the International Monetary Fund was expected to visit Ghana for a second review of its Extended Credit Facility-backed programme for 10 days starting from April 2.
The cocoa, gold and oil-producing country defaulted on most of its $30 billion external debt in December 2022, after debt costs and inflation surged sharply higher.
The Bank of Ghana said on Monday that the inflation outlook had deteriorated slightly over the past two months and required close monitoring.
