Samuel Danquah Arkhurst
A Chief Economics Officer and Director of Treasury and Debt Management Division at the Ministry of Finance, Samuel Danquah Arkhurst says fiscal discipline will be ‘extremely’ key going forward in its dealings especially as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is coming onboard to assist the country to deal with the challenges.
According to government, it will not countenance any form of indiscipline as it is determined to restore microeconomic stability to address challenges confronting the nation.
Samuel Danquah Arkhurst said this when speaking at the launch of the Debt Exchange Programme in Accra on Monday December 5, 2022.
He said “Fiscal discipline will be extremely key going forward.”
Prior to that, the Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta during the launch justified the introduction of the debt exchange programme.
According to him, the programme has become necessary because of the enormous challenges with debt servicing, disclosing that debt servicing is consuming “almost of government’s revenue and also 70 per cent of tax revenue.”
“Which is why we are announcing this to restore our capacity to service debt,” adding that ”domestic bond holders will be asked to exchange their instruments for new ones.”
“Existing domestic bonds as of 1st December will be exchanged for a set of four new bonds maturing in 2027, 2029, and 2037.”
By Vincent Kubi