Canada to Write Off $80m Ghana Debt

CANADA will soon write off $80 million debt owed by Ghana in fulfillment of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, the Canadian High Commissioner in Ghana Jean -Pierre Bolduc has said.

The High Commissioner told The Chronicle in an interview in Accra last Friday that Canada was supportive of the HIPC initiative because the debt level attained by most of developing countries, including Ghana was not sustainable. "When the Government of Ghana presented her grievances to be considered in the HIPC initiative, we felt the debt loan in this country was too high and there have been many ways in trying to reduce that."

The announcement by the Canadian High Commissioner has come few days after Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo declared that Ghana had gained a total amount of 1.1 trillion cedis ($135.9 million) from the HIPC initiative. This, according to him, was an indication that Ghana had made some significant gains in opting for the initiative.

Mr. Osafo-Maafo said a total of 752.4 billion cedis of the amount had been disbursed among the various sectors. Of this amount,266.79 billion cedis was allocated in 2002 while 485.61 billion cedis by the end of August this year.

The amount, the Minister said was received from multilateral donors, such as the World Bank, African Development and the European Union.

In January 2001, Canada announced its intention of cancelling Ghana's debt completely if it implemented HIPC as a tool of reducing poverty.

According to HE Bolduc, Canada had been monitoring the monetary policies of the country since the implementation of the HIPC initiative and that it had seen a sign of relief in the managing of debt. He said currently, the country owed Canada $80 million and would be eliminated at the completion point.

"Ghana has been very well and very fast along the rules of HIPC at decision point and nearly at a completion", he said.

The completion point was something that was negotiable with International Monetary Fund (IMF). HIPC, he said,was an initiative that looked at debt and made it manageable.