GOVERNMENT OF GHANA DOMESTIC DEBT EXCHANGE
1. On July 1, 2022, when the Government of Ghana (“GoG”) announced that it would seek an
International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) program, we were informed that GoG would conduct
a Debt Sustainability Analysis and potentially restructure its debt as a pre-condition for
accessing the IMF program.
2. The Ghana Securities Industry Association (“GSIA”) was engaged on the proposed
program and subsequently, a 5-Member Consultative Committee on financial sector
stakeholder engagement was constituted comprising two (2) representatives from the
banking industry, one (1) representative from capital markets, one (1) representative from
the insurance industry and one (1) representative from the Chamber of Corporate Trustees.
The consultative committee’s mandate was to lead discussions with the financial services
industry and other stakeholders to provide industry-wide inputs and transmit industry
feedback on the debt management strategy to the Ministry of Finance (“MoF”) and Bank of
Ghana (“BoG”).
3. We were therefore surprised when on December 2, 2022, we were invited to a meeting at
the BoG during which the bond exchange program was presented to us and subsequently
launched on December 5, 2022. We believe a bond is a contractual agreement between a
borrower and a lender (bondholders) and therefore any changes to the terms must be
agreed to by both parties.
4. We, at the GSIA understand the difficult crossroads at which our nation currently finds itself
and the difficult choices that need to be made to set us on the path to debt sustainability.
However, we are unable to accept the bond exchange program announced by the Minister
of Finance in its present form.
5. The Way Forward
It is our intention to engage the MoF on our concerns and reservations. We therefore urge
the investing public to continue to have confidence in us as we pursue this process. In this
vein we entreat clients of our member firms to allow us to engage and then communicate
the outcomes to enable them take the best decision on their investments.
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Issued by the Governing Council on December 7, 2022
