T-bills unlikely to be included in DDEP in near term – Fitch

Ratings agency, Fitch, says it does not expect Treasury bills to be included in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme in the near term.

According to the UK-based firm, despite the high yield on the short term securities, it was the only financing tool left for the government, and therefore it would be suicidal to include it in the domestic debt restructuring.

A Senior Director, Emerging Market and African Sovereign Ratings at Fitch Ratings, Toby Illes, speaking at the Africa We­binar Series titled “Reform and New Challenges in Western Afri­ca”, said the government would not restructure T-bills.

He said, “We don’t expect T-bills to be restructured. Just given the need for that financing tool, we wouldn’t expect that to be included.”

“In Ghana’s case, it is gener­ally very complicated to include that in domestic debt restructur­ing. I guess the main question is

that domestic debt restructuring, we would have now is about that the domestic debt restructuring is more about medium term when actually you move a lot of these maturities down the line,” he said.

He, however, expressed worry about the huge domestic debt ser­vicing expected in the years 2027 and 2028 respectively.

“The policy adjustment from now till then is a downward trend. However, as I said when we get to 2027-2028, we would have a huge hung of domestic debt service.”