Each Ghanaian Owes US$355

After Ghana’s debt increasing from $2 billion to US$7.8 billion, as announced by the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr. Paul Acquah, calculations have indicated that the amount each Ghanaian owed, had increased from about US$100 in 2006, when Ghana was forgiven part of its debt, to US$355, equivalent to about GH¢354.

In 2006, the debt reduction had been possible, due to Ghana reaching the HIPC completion point in July 2004, and subsequent debt cancellations by multilateral organisations and donor countries, worth US$4.2 billion. Ghana qualified for multilateral debt release, by the ADB, World Bank and IMF, and a further debt cancellation is expected to reduce Ghana’s foreign debts, to US$1.5 billion by the end of 2006.

However, at the end of the month of June 2008, Ghana’s total public debt stood at US$7.8 billion, from an initial amount of almost US$7.3 billion, at the beginning of the year. This represents an increase of 7.1 per cent, over the period of six months. The stock of domestic debt, which stood at GH¢3,708.2 million, representing 26.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), at the end of the previous year (2007), increased to GH¢4,005.9 million, representing 24.6 per cent of GDP, at the end of the June this year (2008).