The Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has hinted that there will be an imminent 2nd round of restructuring of the country’s domestic debts.
According to him, despite completing the restructuring of some GHS 98bn worth of domestic debts in February, there are ongoing negotiations to restructure some additional GHC 123 billion domestic debt instruments.
Mr. Ofori-Atta made this known during a presentation to stakeholders on macroeconomic developments and the upcoming public debt restructuring as part of the ongoing IMF/World bank spring meetings in the US.
“In February we successfully completed the first pillar of our domestic debt exchange programme. We realized that there was no other alternative to a full domestic debt exchange.
“The February DDEP covers GHS 98bn of our domestic debt and we expect the rest of our debt instruments to be included in the perimeter of the domestic debt to be exchanged.”
Mr. Ken Ofori Atta
Amongst the debt instruments to be affected by the next round of debt exchange are Pension fund holdings, cocobills, US$ local bonds, local currency loans and Government’s debt to Bank of Ghana, totaling some GHS 123bn
Ken Ofori-Atta however insists treasury bills will not be affected.
“Talk of treasury bills, it has been excluded to preserve financial stability and ensure government funding.”
Mr. Ken Ofori Atta
Government in December at the start of its first domestic debt exchange programme had indicated it could exchange more domestic debt, stating “it intended to exchange domestic non-marketable debt and Cocoa bills, under comparable terms at a later stage.”
Eva Esselba Mends Appointed Chief Director Of Finance Ministry
Meanwhile, the coordinating director at the Ministry of Finance, Eva Esselba Mends, has been appointed as the new chief director of the ministry.
Ms. Mends takes over from Patrick Nomo, who assumed the position of chief director in October 2016. Her appointment, which is authorized by the head of the civil service, takes effect this week.
Ms. Eva Esselba Mends joined the Ministry of Finance as a national service person in 1991. She has risen through the ranks from her initial position as an assistant economic officer to her new position as chief director.
In the course of her 28 years of service, she has held several portfolios, including head of the Americas Desk, head of budget development and the group head of public financial management (PFM) reforms.
Ms Eva Esselba Mends is an alumna of the University of Ghana, Legon, where she studied political science with economics.
She is a PFM expert and has extensive experience of economic and public policy formulation and analysis, budget management, aid management, fiscal decentralisation and social protection.
As head of the Americas Desk, she led the technical team that helped Ghana qualify for the first Millennium Challenge Account.
She was also a member of the technical team that developed and managed Ghana’s Multi-Donor Budget Support programme.
As head of budget development, Ms Mends facilitated the establishment of the Fiscal Decentralisation and Budget Reforms Unit of the ministry.
She has also led the implementation of major reforms to the ministry’s work that include gender-responsive budgeting, programme-based budgeting and, lately, development of the new Public Financial Management Act.
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