{"id":52757,"date":"2026-07-21T22:08:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=52757"},"modified":"2026-07-21T22:08:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:08:39","slug":"ghanas-public-debt-climbs-gh%c2%a246-7-billion-in-three-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2026\/07\/21\/ghanas-public-debt-climbs-gh%c2%a246-7-billion-in-three-months\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghana&#8217;s Public Debt Climbs GH\u00a246.7 Billion in Three Months"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ghana&#8217;s public debt stock has grown by GH\u00a246.7 billion over a three-month stretch between February and May 2026, according to the Bank of Ghana&#8217;s latest Summary of Economic and Financial Data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How the Debt Grew Month by Month<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The debt stock stood at GH\u00a2674.1 billion in February before climbing steadily each month: GH\u00a2686.1 billion in March, GH\u00a2695.9 billion in April, and finally GH\u00a2720.8 billion by the end of May. That works out to a roughly 7% increase in cedi terms over the three months, as government continued borrowing to fund economic recovery efforts and meet its financial obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Different Picture in Dollar Terms<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Oddly enough, the story looks quite different when the debt is measured in US dollars. Ghana&#8217;s total public debt actually <strong>fell<\/strong> from US$63.2 billion in February to US$61.5 billion in May \u2014 a reflection of the cedi&#8217;s appreciation against the dollar and other major currencies over the period, rather than any actual reduction in borrowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Debt-to-GDP Ratio Also Rising<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite that dollar-term improvement, Ghana&#8217;s debt burden relative to the size of its economy has been creeping upward. The debt-to-GDP ratio rose from 42.2% in February to 45.1% by May, suggesting that borrowing has been outpacing the economy&#8217;s growth rate over this period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">External and Domestic Debt Both Climbed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Breaking the numbers down further:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>External debt<\/strong> rose from GH\u00a2313.6 billion in February to GH\u00a2341.7 billion in May, now representing 21.4% of GDP.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Domestic debt<\/strong> also increased, reaching GH\u00a2379.1 billion in May, or 23.7% of GDP, as government kept leaning on the local financial market to fund its budget and refinance maturing obligations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Bigger Picture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This latest three-month rise comes on the heels of a period in early 2026 when Ghana&#8217;s debt-to-GDP ratio had actually been declining, aided by a stronger cedi and improved fiscal indicators. The renewed uptick in both the debt stock and the debt-to-GDP ratio is a reminder that, even amid genuine progress in Ghana&#8217;s fiscal turnaround, the country&#8217;s debt trajectory remains sensitive to a mix of exchange rate swings, continued domestic borrowing, and the pace of economic growth. Whether this represents a temporary blip or the start of a longer upward trend will likely become clearer as the Bank of Ghana releases further data in the months ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ghana&#8217;s public debt stock has grown by GH\u00a246.7 billion over a three-month stretch between February and May 2026, according to the Bank of Ghana&#8217;s latest Summary of Economic and Financial Data. How the Debt Grew Month by Month The debt stock stood at GH\u00a2674.1 billion in February before climbing steadily each month: GH\u00a2686.1 billion in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":52758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"nsemgh","_post_source_url":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com","footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[7358,9042,5249,5059,7396,6725,5195,9309,13020,5196,9127,9643,1237,192,2264,6543,12773,10742,6327,6348,3954],"class_list":["post-52757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-bank","tag-borrowing","tag-budget","tag-cedi","tag-data","tag-debt","tag-dollar","tag-dollars","tag-domestic-borrowing","tag-economy","tag-february","tag-fund","tag-gdp","tag-ghana","tag-government","tag-growth","tag-increase","tag-market","tag-stock","tag-us","tag-will"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52759,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52757\/revisions\/52759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}