Speculation On Ghana’s Debt Restructuring Premature – IMF

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has doused speculations that Ghana is poised to start talks on restructuring its debt as part of plans to secure a $3 billion loan from the Fund.

According to the Bretton Woods Institution, the restructuring of Ghana’s debt will be dependent on the outcome of its Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) Report.

The IMF Director of Communications, Gerry Rice, who disclosed this at a news conference in Washington DC said, the DSA report would indicate if there was the need for debt restructuring in the first place and if necessary, how it should be carried out as well as which areas would be affected.

“When a country requests financing from the IMF, we assess whether the country’s policies are consistent with debt sustainability as one of our requirements. We still need to conduct a thorough update of the debt situation in Ghana through our Debt Sustainability Analysis.

“The last, I don’t know if it’s useful, I have here the last DSA, Debt Sustainability Analysis. We published this as part of the 2021 Article IV Staff Report with Ghana. It said public debt was a sustainable conditional on a rigorous and credible implementation of the authority’s medium-term consolidation plan to put debt on a declining trajectory and ensure continued market access,” Mr Rice stressed.

This, he said, would inform the next line of action as government and the Fund remain committed to ensuring no harm was done to the interest of stakeholders as a result of the programme.

Meanwhile, the IMF team is in town to continue official negotiations with government for the loan request.