‘Strike Better Deal With Eurobond Holders’

Kristalina Georgieva with President Akufo-Addo

 

Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, has advised the government to ensure its deal with Eurobond holders is in the best interest of the country.

Ms Georgieva, who made this known when she called on President Akufo-Addo, said Ghana’s negotiating team should ensure she was not short changed because failure to do that would prolong the country’s debt situation.

She emphasised, “We need to complete negotiations with private creditors and Eurobond creditors but completely defending the interest of the country. I heard a bit of discussion, but the sooner we do it the better for the country. The sooner we do a great deal the better for the country.”

The IMF boss continued that to do a transaction that would reverse progress so far made would not help matters adding, “You cannot allow the Eurobond creditors to twist your arm because you have done a very painful domestic debt restructuring that has hurt people here. You have agreed to debt principle with official creditors of Ghana under certain conditions.”

Citing the Zambia situation where the official creditors disagreed with the restructuring terms with the commercial creditors, she noted that “the deal with the Eurobonds has to be a fair deal otherwise we risk seeing what happened in Zambia.

In October [2023], I thought the deal was done then the private sector twisted Zambia’s arm and then tried to give them a better deal than the official creditors.”

Indicating that Ghana was at a critical time close to the top, she stressed, “we still need to do a bit of climbing.”

It would be recalled that Ghana proposed a 30-40% haircut for Eurobond holders as part of the restructuring of the external debt.

By Samuel Boadi

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