Business News of Wednesday, 10 August 2016

Source: 3news.com

Rejection of Ghana on foreign market due to borrowing – Analyst

Seth Terkper, Minister of Finance Seth Terkper, Minister of Finance

Ghana’s failure to receive favourable response on the international market for its 700 million-dollar eurobond has been attributed to what financial experts say is the government’s high appetite for borrowing.

The Finance Ministry in early August halted government’s decision to issue a 700 million-dollar eurobond due to unfavourable market conditions.

But this, according to the Head of research at Dalex Finance, Joe Jackson, is due to the government’s high appetite for borrowing, noting the Ghana’s debt to Gross Domestic Product ratio which currently stands at 63 per cent deters foreign investors.

“We have borrowed so much and one of the reasons why the foreign markets don’t find us attractive is because we have borrowed so much and because of corruption, all the money we have sourced is being wasted,” he argued.

He said that though Ghana at the moment we cannot do without borrowing, it we must significantly reduce its borrowing. “Our situation is dire and we must accept that as a country, we cannot do all the things that we wish to do,” he said.

He observed that government’s fiscal discipline is out of gear even under the IMF programme, adding “We need to cut back our expenditure and get a breather. We went to the IMF for the breather but that problem still persist and we are still borrowing. We cannot spend our way out of our problems, he lamented.