B- to CCC+: ‘Where is economic charlatan Bawumia?’ – Kwakye Ofosu on latest credit downgrade - www.asempanews.com

Bawumia is against the backdrop of the latest economic downgrade by S&P Global Ratings, the agency has downgraded the economy from B-/B to CCC+/C.

In a post on his Facebook timeline, Kwakye Ofosu noted that, “it’s getting more funerial for the Ghanaian economy as S&P too downgrades our credit rating from B- to CCC+.

American credit rating agency, Standard and Poor’s (S&P) Global Ratings on Friday, August 5, pushed Ghana’s debt further into speculative territory, lowering its foreign and local currency sovereign ratings to CCC+/C from B-/B.

S&P which is one of the ‘Big Three’ credit-rating agencies, including Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings in their report stated that the “Covid-19 pandemic and the conflict in Russia have magnified Ghana’s fiscal and external imbalances.”

S&P Global Ratings noted that Ghana has also been affected by a lack of access to Eurobond markets with local authority’s passage of a levy on electronic transactions and legislation to tighten exemptions on tax payments including for VAT, among other moves.

“While these changes could improve the tax take going forward, the situation remains challenging, and over the first half of 2022, the fiscal deficit has exceeded the government’s ambitious target,” S&P Global Ratings stated.

The agency had affirmed Ghana’s ratings in February, as Moody’s downgraded the country to Caa1 with a stable outlook.