International credit rating agency Fitch Ratings claims that although Ghana has fallen behind in servicing its domestic debt. As the latest setback to the ailing economy, the agency last week lowered the nation’s local currency rating from ‘CCC’ to ‘RD’.
The government’s failure to make payments on some of the local-currency bonds issued prior to the domestic debt swap and the lack of clarity over when payments would restart were cited as the key causes of the downgrade.
With the most recent development, Ghana is now fourth in the world and second in Africa only to Zambia in terms of default creditworthiness. Fitch stated in a statement that it has also lowered the issue ratings on five local-currency bonds from “CCC” to “CC” and then removed those ratings.
