The Eurobond Debacle

Foreign investors have thrown our hopes asunder as they turn their backs on our Eurobond dreams. At the time the road show was thought out and thrown to the Ghanaian public, we did not envisage such a negative response. We rather saw in it a breathing space for our rooftop debts and other financial challenges about which we appear to have lost control, befuddled as it were, by its magnitude.

Now that things have gone the way they have we might have to return to the drawing board. Plans about how to service our rooftop debt stock of an unprecedented GH¢94.5 million have by this development taken a turn for the worse.

We are told that one of the reasons the efforts failed was the disagreement over investors' demand for 11.5% yield as against Ghana's rejection of the figure and a preference for nothing above 9.5%.

These are delicate details beyond the ken of the ordinary man in the street, yet its implications have a direct bearing on his life.

This rare reaction from foreign investors must definitely trigger questions in the boardrooms of international financial institutions about whatever has gone wrong with a country with great financial promise but which is now on the verge of bankruptcy as it were, even in the face of adequate natural and human resources.

It is unfortunate that Ghana of all nations, must suffer this level of financial headache.

The two options available for us is to succumb to the dictates of the investors or turn to domestic sources. Both would exact further strains on the private sector. Domestic borrowing, the source of previous challenges, many would rather we did not resort to.

Returning to the international players and succumbing to their yield figure would mean further belt-tightening.

We are torn between the hard rock and the deep blue sea, as it were. The 'we have the capacity to borrow more' disingenuous remark by government in a bid to taunt those cautioning against the loan contracting spree, appears to be taking its toll on our financial health as a nation.

Our financial managers have not given up. How can they when the ship of state is in choppy financial waters almost rudderless? Information available indicates that they would eventually succumb to the dictates of the investors and reap the wages.

Our downward rating by international financial health measuring organizations has not helped matters. Their report on our financial status which we have queried domestically using our propaganda machinery, makes interesting observation.

Perhaps now is the time to consider detaching propaganda from our financial management because figures steeped in lies would soon expose those behind such cooking.

The copious cooking of figures and information churned to the public about so-called strides we have made in opposition to the realities, are laughable.

In a highly globalised world driven by a super information technology, no detail of our financial management can be hidden from those who seek these factors to do their independent analysis, our strident propaganda notwithstanding.