Govt rolled-over maturing T’Bills to raise over GHC2bn

  Adnan Adams Mohammed

Government of Ghana has rolled-over maturing cedi-denominated two-year treasury notes (T-Bills) as it expects to raise about GHC2.7 billion for the last two months of the year.

The Bank of Ghana, last week, opened the order book to resident and non-resident investors interested in rolling-over their 2years T-Bills. This followed the release of the initial pricing guidance for the issuance of the notes, which will mature in 2022.

An amount of GH¢1.5billion was expected to be raised in November, and a further GH¢1.2billion expected to be raised in December as per the government’s debt issuance calendar for the last quarter.

 

In total, the government is aiming to raise GH¢22.2bn from domestic debt issuance in the last quarter, of which GH¢19.7bn will be used to roll over maturing issues.

 

The notes were issued through Absa, Databank, Stanbic, Fidelity Bank and IC Securities acting as book runners for government.

 

According to the government, its 2020 debt strategy focuses on an appropriate financing mix to mitigate costs and risks, and to achieve the desired composition of the public debt portfolio with respect to borrowing from external and domestic sources.

 

The financing strategy proposes issuances of government securities on the domestic market to create cash buffers on top of the programmed net domestic financing of the budget deficit.

 

The strategy states that government will issue or re-open medium- to long-term instruments (2-year, 3-year, 5-year, 7-year, 10-year, 15-year, and 20-year bonds) and refinance some of the maturing Treasury bills and bonds.

 

The strategy also plans to issue marketable and non-marketable debt against possible contingent liabilities arising from the financial and energy sectors in 2020.