T-bills: Government gets GH¢2.53 billion, interest rates increase

According to the results, the government secured GH¢2.53 billion in its latest auction held on April 21, 2023.

However, the government set a target of GH¢1.95 for this week’s auction.

Even though interest rates have been rising, treasury bills have seen some positive subscriptions in recent times.

Interest rates for the 91-day bill stood at 19.86%, 22.57% for the 182-day bill, and 27.26% for the 365-day bill.

According to the auction results from the Central Bank, the government secured GH¢2.04 billion from the 91-day bill, GH¢339.54 million from the 182-day bill, and GH¢143.21 million from the 364-day bill.

However, Ghana is expecting to cop some $3 billion financial bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

This is expected to help solve Ghana’s balance of payment issues since the country currently has no access to the international capital market.

According to John Kumah, the government is putting up measures to ensure that the rates drop further than it has in recent times.

“At the moment T-Bill rate in January was at about 35%, today it is below 20%, and we are still forcing it down.”

“So that in the end once we tackle inflation and it also comes down, we are now going to see the cost of borrowing coming down within reasonable limits for businesses to have the liquidity to operate,” he was quoted by asaasenews.com.

He added, “So if you don’t have a solid macro-economic environment, businesses will suffer and we are working to restore a healthy macro-economic environment so that businesses will do well.”