Haircut Of 35% On coupons, Interest Payment Likely To Be Deferred To 2026 – Haruna Iddrisu

External creditors holding $20 billion of Ghana’s debt are yet to agree to a Government of Ghana debt exchange proposal seeking to waive 35 per cent off their principals or coupons .

Matured interest payments between 11 and 14 billion dollars will also be paid in 2026.

Those are exclusive details JoyNews is learning are currently before the creditors for consideration.

A visiting International Monetary Fund team is in Ghana to review progress made so far by Ghana on the three-year $3 billion deal in the first tranche received so far.

Success for Ghana will mean a release of another 600 million dollars.

Former minority leader Haruna Iddrisu says a restructured external debt will have a massive impact on the economy.

“External debt holders may be compelled to accept a haircut of up to 35 per cent but certainly not less with the interest service between 11 to 14 billion dollars deferred until after the conclusion of the IMF programme in three years. That will mean that project financing will suffer,” he said.

He added that projects that are financed with loans will also come to a standstill if not terminated, adding that this will come at a cost to the state.

In light of this, he advised that the country should be looking at declaring a state of economic emergency crisis.

This, he explained is “because loan finance projects have been halted, expatriate staff and many enterprises had to leave, domestic workers have been laid off and there is no solution.”

But the Minister of State at the Finance Ministry Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam is confident a deal will be reached this month.

“We have two types of external debt – we have the Eurobond holders and bilateral creditors.

For the Eurobond holders, we set up two committees – first committee for international and the other for regional holders. We’ve had constructive engagement with them and we shared in May this year the restructuring scenarios hoping to receive an offer from them.

“As I speak, we have received an offer from the regional bondholders and we are negotiating. We are hoping to receive an offer from the international bondholders,” he said.