Prof Gatsi cautions against more debt accumulation amid debt moratorium from Official Creditors
Dean of the School of Business at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Prof John Gatsi has advised the Government against the use of the three-year debt moratorium period given by bilateral creditors to accumulate more debt.
Prof Gatsi notes that the government should rather take advantage of the moratorium to build enough revenue to pay off the country’s debts after 2026.
“We should not interpret the three-year moratorium to be free fiscal space to borrow more because after the elections, it’s just one and half years more to the end of the moratorium and we will have to start paying our debts.
“So we need to take advantage and get enough revenue to pay off debts after 2026,” he remarked.
“This moratorium is a front loading of debts to 2026 and that means the next Government will have to make the servicing of debts as its priority,” he added.
Prof Gatsi made the assertion speaking on the NorvanReports and Economic Governance Platform X Space Discussion themed, “Analyzing Ghana’s Agreement With External Commercial Creditors: The Impact on the Economy in an Election Year.”
Ghana last week won a moratorium with official creditors on debt payments from this year through May 2026.
Speaking after the announcement of the debt moratorium, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta said the payments owed on $5.4 billion of bilateral obligations would be repaid in two tranches in 16 and 17 years’ time, under the terms of the deal struck in principle.
Ghana’s pact with official creditors, announced Jan. 12, means debt payments from 2023 would be repaid in 2039 and 2040, while debt service due in 2024 would be repaid in 2040 and 2041, he said. The forbearance will run for the duration of Ghana’s program with the International Monetary Fund that ends in May 2026.
Ghana’s pact, finalized in just over a year, has been hailed as one of the quickest under the Group-of-20 Common Framework for Debt Treatment.
