Finance Minister Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam has revealed that Ghana saved $12 billion through the implementation of the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).
Speaking at the 2024 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group on October 23, Dr. Adam emphasized the DDEP’s significant impact on Ghana’s fiscal stability.
The panel discussion addressed the challenges low-income countries face in managing debt, highlighting how the DDEP has been instrumental in alleviating Ghana’s financial struggles.
Launched in December 2022, the DDEP aimed to reduce the government’s debt service obligations and provide essential fiscal relief amid a challenging global economic landscape.
Dr. Adam explained that by requiring domestic bondholders to exchange their existing bonds for new ones with adjusted terms, the programme has effectively lightened the government’s debt burden, making it more manageable.
He praised the DDEP as a key component of Ghana’s broader debt restructuring strategy, which has been vital in addressing the nation’s economic challenges.
Additionally, Dr. Adam revealed that the government is now working on restructuring approximately $2.7 billion in debt with commercial creditors, further aimed at easing Ghana’s financial pressures and stabilizing the economy.
“The DDEP was a great success and we followed that with the restructuring of our bilateral debt, which was also very successful and this led to a significant savings of about $2.8 billion and then following this, the restructuring of our Eurobonds which is about $13 billion, which was concluded in the first week of this month which is another great success.”
“The benefits we have derived from this so far include an outright debt cancellation of about $5 billion and another debt service relief of about $4.3 billion and so between the bilateral creditors and the Eurobonds, we are talking about savings of about $12 billion and we think this is a great success and we are still having an outstanding restructuring with our commercial creditors involving about $2.7 billion and we are working very hard to conclude that,” he stated.