The minority in parliament is cautioning the government against using the savings made from the concluded external debt restructuring exercise for electioneering purposes.

Ghana and its Eurobond holders a week ago, announced terms of agreement to restructure some $13.1 billion in debt with the bondholders set to experience haircut of 37%. This move and the subsequent renegotiation of the 15 eurobonds to have a new maturity date of 2037, the finance minister, Mohammed Amin Adam, says will save the country in excess of $8 billion.

But addressing the media, ranking member of parliament’s finance committee and minority spokesperson on finance, Isaac Adongo says the country must develop a repayment plan as the debt maturities have only been extended.

“Ghana is not ready to repay the debts that have been restructured. The debts have not been forgiven.
They have only been restructured and the term year extended, which means that sooner or later we will be back to the point where we have to pay. Our advice them to put the money that we are saving from the debt service into the sinking fund in order to build buffers and get the country ready to repay his debts when the debts mature.”, he admonished

Isaac Adongo who also doubles as Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central is also cautioning the government against using the savings for electioneering purposes warning it could led to an entire economy collapse in the future.

“They should not put this money into election-related expansionary expenditures and jeopardize the future of our country because when we fail in 2026, Ghana would be collapsed completely. So I want to advise them that these monies should not be seen as free money that should be spent on election,
like they did with the COVID money in 2020, but that the money should be put into buffers in order for future generations or future governments to have the resources available to repay our debt.”, he warned.

Government in the 2024 budget had earmarked in excess of GH¢17 billion for the servicing of external debt this year. While it says the debt restructuring will provide cash flow relief of approximately $4.4 billion during the IMF program period, it remains unclear how much of the relief will be gotten this year.