President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has condemned what he describes as an attempt by rating agencies to impede the progress of African countries in accessing funds for critical national development.
Akufo-Addo’s comment comes after rating agency Moody’s downgraded Ghana’s Long-Term Issuer and Senior unsecured bond Ratings to Caa1 from B3 and changed the outlook from negative to stable.
Fitch, an international rating agency also in January downgraded Ghana’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) from ‘B’ to ‘B-‘ with a negative outlook.
Statistics also reveals over 40% of Sub-Saharan African countries have suffered at least one downgrade, while 35% did same in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Addressing the 35th Africa Union summit in Addis Ababa Ethiopia Akufo-Addo said: “We need to guard against the continuing consequential stranglehold of rating agencies, which has affected the cost and access to capital markets for African countries.
“…And has during this COVID period resulted in the downgrading of many Africa countries exacerbating even more their funding challenges.”
Akufo-Addo added: “Further more it is important that G-20 leaders stick to their commitments to re-allocate to Africa SDR 100 billion agreed to at the Paris Summit in May 2020..”
President Akufo-Addo further called for a concerted effort in reforming global financial architects
“We need to work collectively as African Union to reform the global financial architect even as we build and strengthen our financial institutions.”
GhanaFeed.com