Government’s appetite for borrowing continues unabated as it will today borrow GH¢500 million through the Bank of Ghana (BoG) by issuing a 3-year bond.
This will bring to three the number of bonds issued so far this year. The government had already issued 5-year bonds which together accrued GH¢1 billion to refinance maturing debts and fund some infrastructure programmes.
By the end of this month, government will have borrowed GH¢15.5 billion through bills and bonds alone.
The 3-year bond which is expected to mature in 2019 will be unsecured. It will however be opened to both offshore and local investors and will have a face value of one Ghana cedi.
The minimum bid will be GH¢50,000 and multiples of one thousand thereafter.
According to the Bank of Ghana, Barclays, Stanbic and SAS are the lead brokers for the deal.
Analysts fear the yield could be high at about 25 percent. Ghana attracted a yield of 24.75 percent for the last 5-year bond issued in March, 2016.
Presently, the 91-day and 182-day bills are hovering around 22.80 percent and 24.68 percent respectively. It is expected to go up following the increase in inflation in March 2016 to 19.2 percent.
Ghana’s total public debt stock hit GH¢97.2 billion at the end of December 2015, approximately 72.9 percent of GDP. External debt alone was GH¢57.8 million.
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