Fitch Downgrades Ghana To ‘CCC’

Fitch Ratings, an international rating agency, has downgraded Ghana’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency (LTFC) Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘CCC’ from ‘B-‘.

This adds to Standard and Poor’s downgrade of Ghana’s foreign and local currency credit from B-/B to CCC+/C.

According to the Fitch, the downgrade is in view of the country’s decline in external liquidity resulting from deteriorated public finances, “which has contributed to a prolonged lack of access to Eurobond markets, in turn leading to a significant decline in external liquidity”.

Fitch says it estimates that Ghana faces USD2.75 billion of external debt servicing in 2022, including amortisation and interest, and USD2.8 billion in 2023.

It further cited uncertain pace of Fiscal Consolidation, high Domestic Debt costs, depressed near-term growth outlook, inflation, and a ‘5[+]’ ESG Relevance Score (RS) as drivers for the rating.

Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini