Ghana’s Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has expressed the country’s openness to consider any new cut-off date proposed by external creditors for the ongoing restructuring of Ghana’s external debt.

This statement follows China‘s suggestion of an alternative cut-off date of December 2020, deviating from the previously agreed-upon date of December 2022.

The delay in reaching a consensus on the cut-off date has impacted Ghana’s scheduled meeting with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Board for the disbursement of the next tranche of $600 million.

In an interaction with journalists in Accra, Minister Ofori-Atta reiterated Ghana’s willingness to cooperate with creditors, stating, “For us, we can manage, so the issue is for the membership of the OCC [Official Creditor Committee] to get comfortable, and so we hope that by the end of next week, we will have what we need so that the Fund Board can sit.”

He emphasized the importance of achieving consensus on the comparability of treatment, with China and France co-chairing the Official Creditors Committee.

This development comes in the wake of claims by the Minority Leader, Dr. Ato Forson, who asserted that the negotiation process had encountered challenges, putting the release of the next $600 million package in limbo.

Dr Forson highlighted a disagreement between the Ghanaian government and the Official Creditors Committee concerning the cut-off point for external debt inclusion in the restructuring exercise.

During his concluding remarks on the 2024 budget debate in Parliament on November 29, 2023, Dr. Ato Forson stated, “There is a major disagreement on the cut-off point, regarding the external debt that must be excluded from the restructuring. Mr. Speaker, I do not need to sound the alarm that at this point, Ghana is between a rock and a hard place.”