Ghana’s debt is now over GH¢393bn – BoG
The debt calculation for June 2022 raises Ghana’s debt to GDP ratio to 78.3 percent using a projected 2022 GDP of roughly 502 billion Ghana cedis.
Ghana’s total public debt stock decreased by $58.6 billion in USD from December 2021 to the halfway point of 2022, reaching $54.4 billion.
Additionally, a review of the Central Bank’s data reveals that between June 2021 and June 2022, the debt stock increased by nearly 17.5 percent year over year, going from 334.8 billion Ghana cedis to 393.4 billion Ghana cedis.
Between June 2021 and June 2022, or year over year, there will be an increase of GH58.6 billion.
A further breakdown of the debt figures reveals that the portion of the debt that is locally secured increased by around 8 billion Ghana cedis from 181.8 billion in December 2021 to 190.1 billion in June 2022, or about 38 percent of the anticipated GDP for that year.
However, the foreign portion of the debt dramatically grew in the first half of 2022, going from 170.0 billion Ghana cedis in December 2021 to 203.4 billion Ghana cedis in June 2022, an increase of nearly 33 billion Ghana cedis.
According to figures from the Bank of Ghana, the nearly 16 percent devaluation of the cedi versus the dollar from December to June 2022 was a major factor in the total growth in the debt numbers in cedi terms.
The US dollar sold for approximately 6 cedis on the interbank foreign exchange market in December 2021 and for approximately 7 cedis 43 pesewas in June 2022, according to the Central Bank.