The Government of Ghana (GoG) once again missed its target of raising Ghs 1 billion from the sale of its 91-day and 182-day treasury bills.
Government at the end of trading on Friday, September 18, 2020 was only able to raise Ghs 729 million as against it’s target of Ghs 1 billion.
This follows a 3-year-cedi-denominated bond auctioned last Thursday by Government which also failed to achieve a target of Ghs 1.5 billion as the bond auction was only able to rake in some Ghs 823 million.
GoG lost close to Ghs 700 million in the bond auctioned on Thursday, which was to be used to finance its fiscal operations.
The low subscription of the debt instruments is believed to be the result of tightening market conditions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Over Ghs 627 million was mobilised from the 91-day treasury bill with an interest rate of 14 per cent.
The yield on the 182-day treasury bill, however, went for 14.12 per cent, slightly higher than the previous week pricing.
Increment in the interest rates on the short term securities are an indication of investors demanding more yield on short term government securities as other risk-free securities are giving them more interest rates than government securities.
Data from the Bank of Ghana indicate that government treasury securities were priced at a rate of about 13.97 per cent in the better part of the second quarter of this year.
But, this consistently increased to 14.06 per cent at the end of August this year.
Coming this Friday, September 25, government in its next auction hopes to raise some Ghs 735 million.
