Ghana is prepared to submit a request for debt relief under the G20 Common Framework program and has asked for assurances that the negotiations can move quickly.
The crisis-hit nation has been holding off because of the lengthy delays other nations employing the method have experienced, according to a source familiar with the government’s thinking. The nation obtained a $3 billion staff-level deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in mid-December.
To receive final authorization to borrow the IMF money, the West African nation must restructure its debt. Ghana started a domestic debt exchange in December and later declared it would stop making payments on almost all of its $28.4 billion in foreign debt.
However, speaking on the day when the IMF deal was announced, Ghana’s finance minister said the Common Framework was “plagued with difficulties” and that the government would need guarantees of speed to sign up to it, in order not to “derail momentum”.
Ghana’s public debt was 467.4 billion cedis ($47.7 billion) in September 2022, of which about $4 billion was bilateral, according to the Institute of International Finance. Ghanaian Banks will Deteriorate as a Result of The Restructuring of The Country’s Debt. Some holders of Ghana’s $13 billion overseas sovereign dollar bonds had previously said they would prefer the country not to go through what they viewed as a drawn-out and ineffective process.