Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta
GOVERNMENT HAS announced its plans to issue a gross amount of GH¢22,346.40 million in financial instruments of which GH¢19,732.64 million will be used to rollover maturities while the remaining GH¢2,613.76 million makes up fresh issuance to meet government’s financing requirements.
Some of the instruments it will employ to achieve such target include the 91-day Treasury bills, 182-day Treasury bills, 364-day Treasury bills, three-year bond, five-year bond, six-year bond, seven-year bond and 20-year bond.
A recent Government Issuance Calendar posted online by the Ministry of Finance for the first quarter of this year, which detailed this, said government would float GH¢10.4 billion as 91-day T-Bills, which makes up the biggest of the financial instruments. This will be followed by the two-year bond by which GH¢4.13 billion will be sold.
The 182-day T-Bills, three-year bond and 364-day T-Bills, will respectively follow suit with an issuance of GH¢1.7 billion each and GH¢1.405 billion.
The issuance for the five-year bond, six-year bond, seven-year bond and 20-year bond are expected to fetch government GH¢1.4 billion, GH¢800 million, GH¢700 million and GH¢111.4 million in that order.
The 91-day and 182-day T-Bills are billed to be issued weekly, while the 364-day T-Bill will be issued bi-weekly.
The Ministry of Finance stated that securities of two-year up to seven-year will be issued through the book-building method as the issuance of the 20-year bond will be made through a shelf offering and re-opened based on investors request and market conditions.
Additionally, the ministry said government would update the issuance calendar on a month rolling basis, to reflect a full quarter financing programme.
According to the November 2020 Summary of Financial and Economic Data released by the central bank, Ghana’s public debt stock stood at ¢273.8 billion, representing 71% of Gross Domestic Product in September 2020, equivalent to $48 billion.
It showed that spanning July to September 2020, Government incurred ¢10.7 billion more debt to the stock of Ghana’s public debt.
BY Samuel Boadi