Banking consultant, Dr. Richmond Atuahene, has warned the government against completing the external debt restructuring agreement with its official creditors.

Reviewing whether the deal is a saviour for the Cedi, he said the country is treading on a risky path where it will continue to rely on foreign funds, leading to more borrowing in subsequent years.

Mr. Atuahene was contributing to Joy Prime’s Prime Morning show on Tuesday with Roselyn Felli, following Finance Minister Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam’s announcement on the completion of Ghana’s debt restructuring programme with its creditors.

“Let me make it categorically clear to Ghanaians that the trajectory we’re going, we’re treading on dangerous paths like Argentina and Greece, and we don’t want to go there because every four years we’d have to go and restructure the debt because you haven’t put it in anything that will be able to pay the cash flows,” he cautioned.

From a banking point of view, he wonders if the government is preparing for the future payment of these debts.

Mr. Atuahene asked political parties to attach seriousness to the financial concerns of the country and be analytical about things that could damage the economy instead of claiming glory over little improvements.

He further mentioned that most political critics have kept mute on the country’s request for financial technology (FinTech) institutions to halt GH₵57 billion in remittances, which could be accumulated to boost the economy so that we would not have to restructure any debt.

“As recent as last week, Ghana has allowed some institutions called FinTech to withhold GH₵57 billion, according to the dollar term, 5 billion remittances. If we’re able to capture, trace, and track remittances, last year $5 billion went into some private institutions licensed in Europe and America. Then, in the last 2 years, 3 billion has also gone into them, and you go and beg for 8 billion when you can collate these remittances alone to be able to pay your debt.”

He urged the government to revisit the Payment System Service Act 987 formulated in 2019, which specifically outlines the authorised institutions responsible for holding our foreign exchange.

The banking consultant said no matter how many years debt is restructured, it will still haunt the country. The premium concern he added should be the strategic approach to be able to address pay-off and interest.

He besieged all political leaders to guard down to work and address the damage they are causing to the economy rather than playing blame games.

Mr. Atuahene asserted that the external debt restructuring programme is not a solution to the cedi depreciation as the government claims, even though it is likely to shore up foreign exchange.

“You need to do your homework very well. It’s not something you do for capital expenditure. You need to make sure that these are put in certain areas that will bring you resources to be able to pay in a longer time,” he said.

Ghana has successfully completed the debt restructuring programme with its creditors, which the government began working on a little over a year ago as part of a deal with the International Monetary Fund. They reached an agreement in principle with bilateral creditors in January to rework $5.4 billion of obligations under the Group of 20 Common Framework for Debt Treatment.

According to the Finance Minister at a UK Town Hall meeting, the government has successfully restructured its debt of 5.1 billion dollars with these creditors, in addition to concluding the restructuring of 13.1 billion dollars with Eurobond holders.