Sweden cancels Ghana's debts

The Swedish Government has cancelled Ghana's $25.3 million debt owed to Sweden. The gesture means Sweden has cancelled Ghana's total indebtedness to it.

That is the final debt cancellation that Sweden has granted Ghana under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. The first cancellation of $14.5 million was in February this year.

The Swedish Ambassador accredited to Ghana but resident in Nigeria, Mrs Birgitta Holst-Alani, announced this in Accra yesterday when she led an eight-member Swedish business delegation to call on a deputy minister for finance and economic planning, Prof. George Gyan-Baffour. The business delegation is in the country to explore avenues of investment in agriculture, trade, roads and transport.

Mrs Holst-Alani said that the debt cancellation was based on a multilateral agreement of the Paris Club of Creditors aimed at canceling the debts of the poorest and most indebted countries.

The Swedish ambassador commended the Government for maintaining transparency and accountability in the governance of the country. She also lauded the Government for its campaign against corruption and for updating the Ghana poverty reduction strategy, saying that “Ghana is going in the right direction.”

She stressed that the fact that Ghana was the first country to be reviewed under the African Peer Review Mechanism indicated that the country was committed to good governance and hinted that “the Swedish Government is getting interested in Ghana.”

According to Mrs Holst-Alani, the country was conducive for doing business, hence the arrival of the business delegation in the country.