The government has sent a proposal on the restructuring of its external debt to its official creditors.

According to Reuters, the ‘working proposal’ is however not legally binding.

The move could be seen as a major step for the government to get the Official Creditor Committee including the Paris Club formed in May 2023 to consider the country’s debt restructuring programme.

This also signifies the beginning of a more detailed negotiating process that will likely see a number of proposals being exchanged.

The Common Framework process was set up by the G20 in 2020 to bring China and other newer creditor nations into joint sovereign debt restructuring negotiations, for its external debt rework.

Ghana is hoping to cut about $10 billion out of a total of $52 billion over the next three years to successfully implement the International Monetary Fund programme.

The country’s debt to China and members of the Paris Club is estimated at $5.4 billion. As of December 2022, the total external debt stood at $28.9 billion.

It has already completed a Domestic Debt Exchange Programme in February 2023 in which about 65% of bondholders took part in the exercise.