Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta
GOVERNMENT HAS touted its ability to successfully raise $3 billion from international financial institutions through a three-tranched Eurobond which attracted more bids than the country asked for, as an expression of investor confidence in the economic resurgence of Ghana.
On Tuesday, March 19, 2019, at the close of a roadshow in London,the subscription for the 2019 sovereign bond had swelled, resulting in orders totaling $21 billion.
That was about seven times more than the amount needed by Ghana, thus enabling the book runners to favorably negotiate interest rates on long-term instruments.
However, a delegation of the Ghanaian Government led by Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, opted for only $3 billion, in consonance with the amount budgeted for and approved in the 2019 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the state.
And addressing the media on Wednesday, March 20, in Accra, Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said the oversubscription was an indication that there was confidence in Ghana’s economic resurgence.
He stated emphatically that “Government considers the successful Eurobond issuance as vote of confidence in Ghana’s economic resurgence.”
The Government’s consideration that this is a vote of confidence is founded on three major pillars, he said, adding that “the first is that the nearly seven times oversubscription of the Ghana request is evident of the growing global confidence in Ghana’s economic resilience.”
According to him, “the global investor community has by this oversubscription to this magnitude, signal their faith in Ghana’s new ability to churn out very strong returns on investment and consequently service our obligations.”
He noted that there was growing appetite for investments in Ghana’s money market, adding that such high success coming at a time the country was preparing to exit the IMF programme signal that the global investor community was confident that the managers of the economy are on an irreversible track of stability.
The Information Minister noted that “this we believe is driven strongly by the Akufo-Addo’s administration’s success at introducing among other things legislations such as the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the establishment of Fiscal Council and the establishment of the Financial Stability Council.”
All of the legislations were designed to anchor the regained trust in the Ghanaian economy.
He stated that the oversubscription also showed a robust investor confidence.
BY Melvin Tarlue