Ghana’s public debt stock now stands at GH¢344.5 billion in November 2021, after GH¢2.7 billion new loans.
This is contained in the January 2022 Bank of Ghana Summary of Economic and Financial Data.
The latest figure in the public debt stock means the debt-to-GDP now stands at 78.4%.
The BoG report also revealed that the GH¢2.7 billion fresh loans are largely domestic debt.
Even though the government had indicated that it will borrow just about a billion cedis during the final quarter of 2021, the data from the Central Bank suggest otherwise.
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According to the figures, the domestic debt went up to ¢179.4 billion in November 2021, from ¢178.1 billion recorded in September 2021. This is equivalent to 40.8% of GDP.
The continuous borrowing by the government on the domestic market is crowding out the private sector from access to funds and consequently keeping lending rates relatively high.
The external debt remained unchanged at $27.9 billion in November 2021, from September 2021.
This is however equivalent to 37.6% of GDP.
But the cedi component of the external debt shot up because of the decline in the value of the cedi to the dollar during the period.
On the other hand, the financial sector resolution bond stayed the same at ¢14.9 billion in November 2021, equivalent to 3.4% of GDP.