Ken Ofori-Atta, Finance Minister
GOVERNMENT HAS announced it plans to issue a gross amount of GH¢23,230.00 million, of which GHȼ22,618.06 million is to rollover maturities.
The remaining GH¢611.94 million is fresh issuance to meet Government’s financing requirements.
A government issuance calendar from the Ministry of Finance for July to September this year which made this known, said the calendar was developed based on the net domestic financing provided in the 2021 budget statement and the medium term debt management strategy (MTDS) for 2021-2024.
It also depicts securities that are intended to be issued in respect of Government’s public sector borrowing requirements for the period July to September, 2021.
Government announced in June a plan to issue a gross amount of GH¢21,960.00 million, of which GHȼ19,864.43 million was to rollover maturities.
The remaining GH¢2,095.57 million, it said, was fresh issuance to meet government’s financing requirements.
Ghana’s stock of public debt shot to GH¢304.6 billion at the end of March 2021, compared with GH¢292.7 billion at the end of December 2020.
That was on account of the financing of the fiscal deficit in the first quarter done mainly from domestic sources.
Dr. Ernest Addison, Governor of the Bank of Ghana, told the media in Accra after its 100th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, that out of the total debt stock, domestic debt was GH¢163.6 billion (37.7 per cent of GDP), while the external debt was GH¢141.0 billion (32.5 per cent of GDP).
In his assessment, the BoG Governor noted that “The gap in revenue performance viz-a-viz the budgeted target has been somewhat compensated for by expenditure containment measures,” he mentioned.