Domestic Debt Exchange: Gov’t extends deadline for a third time

Ghana has further extended the deadline to register for its domestic debt exchange to 31 January 2023 in order to “secure internal approvals” from the financial sector, the Ministry of Finance has announced.

The move, the Finance Ministry says, is to further build consensus on the debt exchange programme.

This is the third time that the government has extended the debt exchange programme to build consensus.

Ghana announced a domestic debt exchange programme in December 2022 and said that external restructuring was being negotiated with creditors.

The ministry had previously extended the registration deadline for the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme to 30 December 2022 from the original 19 December 2022 and extended it further to 16 January 2023.

“Building consensus is key to a successful economic recovery for Ghana. Pending further stakeholder engagement with institutional and individual investors, recently invited to join the debt exchange programme, government is extending the expiration of the DDE to 31 January 2023,” a tweet from the Office of the Finance Minister said.

The government, in its drive to mitigate the economic crisis, has negotiated a staff-level agreement for a US$3 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF has said that its board will approve the deal only if Ghana undergoes comprehensive debt restructuring.