Ofori Atta Confirms Talks With Paris Club Creditors
The Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori Atta, has confirmed the government has already approached international creditors over the debt restructuring programme.
He announced this while addressing the Parliament on the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).
In his speech, he confirmed that Paris Club creditors and non-Paris Club creditors have been asked to form a committee for the debt restructuring process of Ghana.
This had earlier been reported by Reuters.
The Paris Club is a group of officials from major creditor countries whose role is to find coordinated and sustainable solutions to the payment difficulties experienced by debtor countries.
China is Ghana’s single biggest bilateral creditor with $1.7 billion of debt, while Ghana owes $1.9 billion to Paris Club members, according to data from the Institute of International Finance (IIF), Reuters reported.
Addressing Parliament on February 16, the Finance Minister said Ghana has requested an expedited treatment under the common framework and has presented its economic and fiscal outlook as well as the steps undertaken so far with the DDEP.
“The members have indicated their commitment to establish a further committee to assess Ghana’s papers for debt treatment under the common framework by end of February 2023.”
To fast-track discussions with the Paris Club, he said, the government approached India and China on January 10.
“We hope, Mr Speaker, that commercial creditors will understand our desire to negotiate over bilateral progress sub to terms to what we proposed to them, as a speedy process of the bilateral process is needed to pave the way for discussions with private creditors.”
Aside from the Paris Club, he said, there were discussions with international bondholders and their advisors with substantive discussions scheduled in the weeks to come.
Ofori Atta expects a meeting with the Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in March for approval of the 3 billion bailout.
Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini
