Ghana to issue US$1 billion sustainable bonds in July – Adu Boahen

• Proceeds from the sale will be used to finance domestic debt and the Free SHS programme

• Government is seeking to tap some transactional advisors for the issuance

Minister of State-designate at the Finance Ministry has disclosed the Government of Ghana is planning to raise US$1 billion through the sale of sustainable bonds in July this year, Bloomberg reports.

According to Charles Adu Boahen, proceeds from the sale would go towards financing domestic debt which will be used for environmental and social projects as well as loans taken to fund government’s Free Senior High School programme.

“With this issue, we’re looking at refinancing those debt already raised to undertake projects in the environmental and social sectors. Out of all that we will raise with our capital market mandate this year, only US$1.5 billion is fresh debt, the rest is for refinancing or buyback,” Adu Boahen is quoted to have said.

Adu Boahen added that government will contract some of the same transactional advisors it used for the sale of its historic zero-coupon bond sale for the issuance of the sustainable bonds in July this year.

The bond sale which will come in the form of social and green bonds follows an earlier sale of four zero-coupon debt to investors on the international capital market bank back in March 2021.

The Eurobond deal which was estimated at US$3.025 billion came with 20-year, 12-year and seven-year securities.

As lead managers of the zero-coupon bond sale, The Government of Ghana contracted the Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Standard Chartered Plc, Standard Bank Group Ltd. and Rand Merchant Bank Ltd.