T-bills rates dip further to 18%, government gets GH¢3.8 billion

Treasury bills

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Government secured GH¢3.88 billion from the sale of treasury bills in its latest auction held on March 10, 2023.

This was an oversubscription of the GH¢1.10 billion it was targeting. However, interest rates have dropped significantly to 18%.

According to the auction results from the Central Bank, the government secured GH¢2.90 billion from the 91-day bill and GH¢972.49 million from the 182-day bill.

The subscriptions surpassed the government’s set target of GH¢2.775 million but it sold more than the GH¢3.31 billion secured by the government in last week’s auction.

Interest rates, however, reduced to 18.52% for the 91-day bill, 22.8%, and 21.27% for the 182-day bill.

The fall in the rates has been attributed to the successful debt restructuring program.

According to the government, the Domestic Debt Exchange programme has accounted for the reduction in the rate of Treasury Bills from 35 to 24 percent.

The Deputy finance minister argued the programme is yielding the results necessary for economic growth and transformation.

He said in Parliament: “Last week, the treasury bill rate in the country was at 35 percent. Today as we speak, the treasury bill rate has been reduced to 24 percent because of the DDEP. We had oversubscription and even at 24 percent, there is an oversubscription of 121 percent.

“We are going to see a further reduction in the coupon rate of T-Bills. What that portends for our country in the future is that inflation will come down, cost of borrowing for the private will also go down and this will restore economic stability and inclusive growth of our economy.”