Fitch downgrades Ghana’s credit rating from B to B- with negative outlook
Managers of Ghana’s economy are doing well, John Kumah
Deputy Minister for Finance, John Kumah, has asked naysayers to stop complaining about the state of Ghana’s economy.
He said Ghana is experiencing a positive growth outlook per the figures from its growth rate.
The deputy minister said all countries of the world are currently experiencing hardships due to the COVID-19 pandemic hence Ghana’s situation is no different
Speaking on Asaase’s Breakfast show on the back of current ratings by Bloomberg and Fitch ratings, the Minister stated that some of the indicators used by the agencies were inaccurate and not a true representation of Ghana’s situation.
He said “we are very confident. If you look at the figures from last year. In the first quarter of 2021 the economy grew by 3.3%, second quarter that was coming immediately from Covid after we’ve done just 0.4% in the previous year, we did 3.9%, third quarter we did 6.6%, fourth-quarter figures are yet to come, that even put us above the target for 2022, that is 5%.
"So how can anybody be complaining about an economy that is growing in the midst of 5.2% in the average?” he quizzed.
International rating agency, Fitch, released a report which downgraded Ghana’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘B-‘from ‘B’ with a negative outlook.
The downgrade of Ghana’s IDRs and Negative Outlook reflect the country’s loss of access to international capital markets in the second-half of 2021, following a pandemic-related [COVID-19] surge in government debt.
Fitch said “this comes in the context of uncertainty about the government’s ability to stabilise debt and against a backdrop of tightening global financing conditions. In our view, Ghana’s ability to deliver on planned fiscal consolidation efforts could be hindered by the heavier reliance on domestic debt issuance with higher interest costs, in the context of an already exceptionally high interest expenditure to revenue ratio.”
Meanwhile, John Kumah praised government for its efforts in managing the economy properly even in COVID times.
“In the other sectors we are doing well, we have an import cover of over 5months, even the national target is to do 4months of import cover, so if you have over 11billion sitting as your import cover, it shows the strength of the managers of the economy," the minister said. Read Full Story
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