Ghana’s debt stock increases to Ghs 341.8 bn at end-Q3 2021
A marginal increment of 0.3 percentage points in the country’s total debt stock has been recorded from the month of August to September.
Per data contained in the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) November 2021 Summary of Economic and Financial Data and examined by norvanreports, the country’s debt stock for the two months under review increased by some Ghs 1.5 billion ending the month of November at Ghs 341.8 billion.
Total debt stock as of March 2021 was Ghs 304.66 billion, it then increased to Ghs 334.8 billion in June and then to Ghs 341.8 billion in September this year.
For the review period – August and September – the external composition of the nation’s debt stock decreased marginally by 0.1 percent from 37.3 percent in August to 37.2 percent in September.
In monetary terms, this translates into Ghs 163.7 billion ($27.9 billion).
With regards to the domestic component of the debt stock, domestic debt increased marginally from 40.1 percent in August to 40.5 percent in September, translating into some Ghs 178.1 billion at end-September 2021.
Cumulatively, Ghana’s total debt stock as at end-September 2021 according to the BoG stood at 77.8 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), some 0.3 percentage points increase from the 77.5 percent of GDP recorded at end-August 2021.
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Meanwhile, presenting the 2022 budget and assigning reasons for the increase in the country’s debt, particularly for the first nine months of the year, the Finance Minister noted preliminary data indicate that, both revenue and expenditure were below their respective targets for the period.
However, the shortfall in revenue was higher than that of expenditure, resulting in a fiscal deficit of 7.7 percent of GDP against the target of 7.4 percent of GDP.
Total Revenue and Grants for the first three quarters of 2021 amounted to GH¢47,235 million (10.8% of GDP), against the revised target of GH¢51,314 million (11.7% of GDP) for the period. The end-September outturn, nonetheless, compares favourably with the GH¢37,445 million recorded in the same period in 2020.
Total Expenditures (including arrears clearance and discrepancy) for the period amounted to GH¢81,093 million (18.5% of GDP) against the target of GH¢83,890 million (19.1% of GDP). The end-September provisional outturn was 15.3 percent above the GH¢70,316 million recorded for the same period 2020.
Expenditure on Compensation of Employees amounted to GH¢23,394 million, 0.3 percent above the revised target of GH¢23,323 million and 14.4 percent above the outturn in the corresponding period 2020.
Interest Payment, was marginally above the target for the period by 0.9 percent, totalling GH¢25,394 million against a revised target of GH¢25,158 million. Of this amount, domestic interest payment amounted to GH¢20,576 million, 4.9 percent higher than the revised target, while external interest payment of GH¢4,818 million was below the programme for the period by 13.2 percent.
