All is set for the Joy Business Thought Leadership Series scheduled for tomorrow (February 21, 2023) at 1pm.

The programme will be live on the Joy News Channel and Joy FM and will be held under the topic “Debt Exchange and International Monetary fund(IMF) Deal: A do or die affair?.

The speakers will include the Director of ISSER, Prof. Peter Quartey, Banking Consultant Dr. Richmond Atuahene, CEO of the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce, Mark Badu-Aboagye and, Convener of the Ghana Individual Bondholders Forum, Senyo Hosi.

The rest of the panel are Economist, and Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School, Dr. Agyapomaa Gyeke-Darko, Financial and Investment Consultant David Tetteh and Former Finance Minister, Seth Terkper. The programme will be moderated by George Wiafe and Bismark Akakpo.

Ghana’s debt stock

Ghana’s public debt stock stood at ¢575.7 billion at the end of November 2022, about 93.5% of Gross Domestic Product, the Bank of Ghana’s January 2023 Summary of Economic and Financial Data has disclosed

The debt stock increased by ¢108.3 billion between September and November 2021, indicating that the country’s debt was unsustainable.  This triggered a debt restructuring in which the Domestic Debt Exchange is expected to end on January 31, 2023.

According to the data from the Central Bank, the external component of the total public debt shot up to $29.2 billion (¢382.7 billion) in November 2022, equivalent to 62.1% of GDP. This was from $28.4 billion (¢271.7 billion) in September 2022 and $28.3 billion in December 2021.

From the figures, the about 37% depreciation of the cedi to the dollar in 2022 was the main cause of the significant jump in the cedi component of the external debt.

In terms of the domestic debt, it stood at ¢194.7 billion at the end of December 2022, about 31.6% of GDP. This is against ¢195.7 billion recorded in September 2022 and ¢193.1 billion in November 2022. About ¢170 billion of the domestic debt is being restructured for a period of 12 years.