DDEP: Government will not include T-bills, it would be suicidal – Fitch

Fitch said it does not see Treasury bills being included in the programme in the near term.

According to the UK-based firm, treasury bills have become the government’s main financing tool, therefore deciding to include it in its exchange programme will be suicidal to its finances.

A Senior Director of Emerging Market and African Sovereign Ratings at Fitch Ratings, Toby Illes, speaking at the Africa Webinar Series titled “Reform and New Challenges in Western Africa” projected that the government will not restructure T-bills.

“We don’t expect T-bills to be restructured. Just given the need for that financing tool, we wouldn’t expect that to be included.

“In Ghana’s case, it is generally very complicated to include that in domestic debt restructuring. I guess the main question is that domestic debt restructuring we would have now is about that the domestic debt restructuring is more about medium-term when actually you move a lot of these maturities down the line,” he said.

Tony Illes said his worry is about the huge domestic debt servicing expected in the years 2027 and 2028 respectively.

He said: “The policy adjustment from now till then is a downward trend. However, as I said when we get to 2027-2028, we would have a huge hung of domestic debt service.”