- DDEP Bonds Drive GH¢3.70bn GFIM Turnover as 2031 Bond Dominates Trading
Trading on the Ghana Fixed Income Market reached GH¢3.70 billion on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, with government bonds issued under the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme accounting for more than three-quarters of market activity.
The GFIM trading report shows that DDEP bonds recorded GH¢2.86 billion in volume across 78 trades, representing 77.49% of total securities traded during the session. Treasury bills followed with GH¢518.51 million across 323 trades, equivalent to 14.03% of overall market volume.
Sell-and-buy-back transactions involving government notes and bonds contributed another GH¢312.80 million, or 8.46%, while old government notes and bonds generated just GH¢810,000. No trades were recorded in either new government notes and bonds or corporate securities during the session.
The concentration of activity in DDEP securities underscores the growing importance of the restructured bonds to Ghana’s secondary fixed-income market, particularly as investors increasingly differentiate between instruments according to maturity, yield and liquidity.
The standout security was the GOG-BD-11/02/31-A6147-1838-8.95, a DDEP bond maturing in February 2031. It recorded GH¢1.55 billion in volume across 30 trades, making it by far the most actively traded security on the market.
That single bond accounted for approximately 41.83% of all GFIM trading during the day and 53.98% of total DDEP bond activity. It ended the session at a yield of 14.75% and a closing price of about GH¢81.36 for every GH¢100 of face value.
The discount to par illustrates an important feature of Ghana’s post-restructuring bond market. Several DDEP instruments carry relatively low coupons compared with prevailing secondary-market yields, meaning their prices must trade below face value to offer investors returns consistent with current market conditions.
The February 2032 DDEP bond, carrying a 9.10% coupon, was the second-largest contributor to activity, with GH¢594.44 million traded across seven transactions. Its closing yield stood at 14.92%, with the bond priced at approximately GH¢78.64.
Another heavily traded instrument was the February 2027 DDEP bond with an 8.35% coupon. It recorded GH¢429.39 million in volume across 24 trades and closed at a yield of 11.60% and price of about GH¢98.41.
Together, these transactions show a market with considerably greater liquidity in selected DDEP maturities than across the wider bond universe. The distribution matters because headline turnover can give the impression of broad market activity even when a substantial proportion of that turnover is concentrated in a relatively small number of securities.
Treasury bills presented a different picture. Although their GH¢518.51 million volume was significantly below that of DDEP bonds, the segment generated 323 transactions, far more than any other category on the market.
The single largest Treasury bill transaction involved the bill maturing on August 9, 2027, which recorded GH¢196.28 million across 42 trades and closed at a yield of approximately 12.85%, according to GFIM’s summary.
That contrast between transaction numbers and trading value points to different patterns of participation. DDEP bond turnover was driven by fewer but much larger transactions, while the Treasury bill market recorded a significantly greater number of individual trades.
The market also recorded GH¢312.80 million in sell-and-buy-back transactions involving government securities across six trades. The largest of these involved the February 2032 DDEP bond, with GH¢177.37 million changing hands in a single transaction at a yield of 14.10%.
Such transactions are important to market liquidity because they allow financial institutions to raise short-term funding against securities while retaining economic exposure to the underlying assets.
Old government bonds, by comparison, have become increasingly marginal to daily activity. Only GH¢810,000 was traded across four transactions, with the largest volume GH¢580,000 recorded in a September 2027 bond carrying an 18.80% coupon.
The absence of corporate bond activity is also notable. While GFIM lists securities issued by companies including Letshego Ghana, Bayport Savings and Loans, Kasapreko, Izwe Savings and Loans and Quantum, none recorded trades during Wednesday’s session.
That reinforces the longstanding imbalance in Ghana’s fixed-income market, where government securities dominate secondary-market activity and corporate debt remains relatively illiquid.
For policymakers and market operators, the challenge is therefore not simply increasing headline turnover but broadening the range of securities that attract regular trading.
Wednesday’s numbers nevertheless show that the secondary market for restructured government debt is capable of generating substantial liquidity, with the DDEP segment alone approaching GH¢3.00 billion in a single session.
The more important question is how widely that liquidity is distributed.
On August 12, it was heavily concentrated in one part of the curve: a single 2031 DDEP bond generated more than two-fifths of all trading on the Ghana Fixed Income Market.
That concentration makes the day’s GH¢3.70 billion turnover impressive in scale but also reveals a market in which liquidity remains highly selective rather than evenly spread across government and corporate debt instruments.
