Ghana’s home debt restructuring has stalled: 4 the reason why

Ghana is facing a number of monetary and financial challenges and has requested a US$3 billion bailout from the Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF) to assist it restore macroeconomic stability. It will embrace bringing public debt right down to extra manageable ranges from the currently estimated 105% of GDP to 55% in current worth phrases by 2028.

IMF help, which is but to be accepted by the fund’s govt board, is conditional on Ghana restructuring its public debt – home and exterior – which in flip requires the buy-in of bondholders. Which means that those that lent cash to the federal government by shopping for bonds must conform to the restructuring, resembling an extended reimbursement interval.

As a primary step of the debt restructuring, the Ghanaian authorities introduced a voluntary Home Debt Trade Programme (DDEP) in early December 2022. It seeks to trade about GHS137.3 billion (US$11.45 billion or about 15% of 2021 GDP) of current domestic notes and bonds held by numerous native buyers for a package deal of 12 (initially 4) new bonds with completely different payout dates.

For any sovereign debt restructuring train to succeed, a qualifying majority (normally 75%) of debt holders should agree to alter the contract’s key monetary phrases. This prevents a minority investor group from holding out and stopping the debt restructuring from continuing.

However the subscription to this programme is under 50%, nicely under the federal government’s 80% goal. Bondholders have acknowledged that the phrases supplied imply that they’ll lose cash.

Teams such because the Ghana Particular person Bondholders Discussion board have estimated losses of fifty% to 90% on their investments in the event that they trade their present devices.

That’s the place issues are caught, forcing authorities to increase the cut-off date for the bond trade thrice already since early December 2022.

So what’s gone improper? Why has the federal government not been in a position to get home bondholders to simply accept the phrases it has placed on the desk?

I supply 4 causes: buyers face important losses; the federal government’s “take-it-or-leave-it” method; a scarcity of religion within the authorities; and the truth that there’s no sense of sharing the burden.

What’s behind the standoff

Vital losses by buyers: My colleague Dr Yakubu Abdul-Salam estimates that buyers will lose 62.40% of their bond’s authentic market worth. The Ghana Particular person Bondholders Discussion board says bondholders will lose about 88.2% of their investments at present inflation ranges. A number of bondholders have refused to take part. That is opposite to the federal government’s earlier expectation of “overwhelming support for this exchange”.

Ghana’s authorities has up to now announced three extensions of the deadline because it struggles to achieve the trade benchmark of a qualifying majority. The brand new 31 January 2023 deadline will not be met both.

Authorities’s take-it-or-leave-it method: Authorities has offered the plan as a free or voluntary selection. However there aren’t any actual alternate options on the desk.

If the restructuring isn’t fastidiously managed, it may have a considerable affect on the home monetary sector, which owns a big portion of the bonds. Any losses inside the monetary sector then cascade into adversarial results on financial development, employment and inequality.

Learn extra: Ghana and the IMF: debt restructuring must go hand-in-hand with managing finances better

The federal government’s method has been to “divide and conquer”. As an alternative of assembly all of the bondholders’ representatives by, for instance, a nationwide debt discussion board, the federal government has met some teams individually to supply or change concessions.

This technique means one group loses out and one other positive factors. For instance, particular person bondholders had been initially excluded from the bond trade programme. They had been included after pension funds had been exempted from the programme.

Lack of excellent religion within the authorities: Bondholders really feel that the federal government has not been truthful in regards to the dire state of the financial system.

The present administration has sought to blame the Russia-Ukraine battle and the COVID-19 pandemic for Ghana’s present financial and monetary challenges. The battle has been a contributing issue however a number of research, together with one by the World Bank, have proven that Ghana’s funds had been precarious even earlier than the pandemic. For instance, the nation’s exterior (international) and total debt had been at a excessive threat of misery way back to 2019.

In different phrases, the nation had been dwelling past its means for years. It solely wanted an exterior shock to reveal the weak spot.

No sense of burden-sharing: Bondholders have additionally expressed reservations in regards to the burden of the bond swap not being shared throughout the society. Neither is it being pitched as if it could obtain higher outcomes for the nation.

One of many key classes from Jamaica’s profitable debt trade programme, as highlighted in a 2012 IMF study, is that

there was a notion that the burden was being shared throughout the society to realize a greater final result for the nation as an entire.

This made the plan acceptable to these straight affected.

In Ghana’s case, the federal government’s divisive method has made it troublesome for bondholders to understand the severity of the state of affairs and thus attain acceptable includes. One demonstration of burden sharing, for instance, could be to chop wasteful public expenditure and the scale of presidency. With out this, the phrases of the bond swap quantity to what the convener of the Particular person Bondholders Discussion board has described as

state-sponsored theft or pickpocketing.

How can uptake be improved?

Ghana should comprehensively restructure its public debt and enhance its public funds. However the proposed bond trade should be restructured to extend its possibilities of acceptance by home bondholders.

How can this be accomplished?

Firstly, by organising a nationwide debt discussion board with all stakeholders. The discussion board would supply a chance for frank conversations with all bondholders current somewhat than the present siloed divide-and-rule method whose final result has been the inclusion, exclusion and re-inclusion of sure classes of home bondholders.

Secondly, the federal government should renegotiate with the IMF to increase the “under 55% of GDP in NPV phrases by 2028” public debt goal to at the very least 2032. This may purchase the nation time to regulate step by step. The dimensions of cuts and debt restructuring wanted now could possibly be milder. It will additionally mitigate the ripple results on the financial system, which incorporates some home monetary establishments probably going underneath attributable to appreciable losses.

Thirdly, the federal government should share the burden by slicing down on wasteful expenditure. In Jamaica, they understood the necessity “to alter course, away from a historical past of continued public debt growth and authorities deficits, which had not delivered by way of financial development and improved requirements of dwelling”. The identical could possibly be mentioned of Ghana.