Ratings agencies wanted Ghana to return to IMF – Toma Imihere suggests

Financial analyst, Toma Imihere believes Ghana had no chance of getting favourable outlooks from rating agencies because of an overall desire to see Ghana return to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

He was reacting to Standard and Poor’s (S&P) downgrade of Ghana’s foreign and local credit ratings from B-B’ to CCC+C with a negative economic outlook.

Before this, Fitch had downgraded Ghana’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘B-‘ from ‘B’ and the outlook was negative.

Moody’s Investors Service (Moody’s) downgraded Ghana’s long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings to Caa1 from B3 and changed the outlook to stable from negative.

Imihere said the ratings agencies “want to protect the interest of their clients in making sure Ghana does not go over the top.”

Imihere noted that S&P’s rating, which came after the mid-year budget review, was further proof of Ghana’s struggles.