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The Director of Business Operations at Dalex Finance, Joe Jackson, has urged the government to expedite negotiations on the debt exchange programme by the end of January 2023 or the country will be heading for "doomsday".
On the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, January 4, Mr Jackson stated that the government must change its approach and properly engage bondholders in order for the program to be accepted.
"In my opinion, it should have been handled by the end of this month; it is difficult to envision going into February without this issue being fixed; otherwise, we would be moving towards the doomsday scenario," Mr Jackson told sit-in presenter Nathan Quao.
Mr Jackson went on to say that the international market is still good to the country because of the recent economic stability brought about by the staff-level deal with the International Monetary Fund.
"The reason why the markets haven't punished Ghana as hard as they might have punished us is that there is a notion that the IMF would step in and bring some stability…but we then need to deal with all these constituencies that we are asking to take a haircut, and it has to be voluntarily. So we're walking on a razor's edge, and we need to make a decision soon. "I don't believe there is a lot of time."
According to the Finance Ministry, Ghana extended the deadline for registering for its domestic debt exchange in December to January 16 in order to "obtain internal clearances" from the banking industry.
The Ministry of Finance also announced a shift in the debt exchange, with the creation of eight new products.
The ministry had already postponed the registration deadline for the domestic debt swap from December 19 to December 30.
"This extension allows the government...to examine comments made by all stakeholders with the goal of altering some measures," the Finance Ministry said in a statement, repeating the tone of the original extension announcement.
Local bonds were to be swapped with new ones expiring in 2027, 2029, 2032, and 2037, with yearly coupons set at 0% in 2023, 5% in 2024, and 10% from 2025 until maturity under the original plan.
The Finance Ministry announced the newest extension, saying that eight more instruments will be established, increasing the total number of new bonds to 12, with one due each year from 2027 to 2038.