President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has slammed international rating agencies, claiming their downgrade of the Ghanaian currency worsened Ghana’s economic crisis.

He described the downgrading as “reckless behaviour” which had grave consequences on the nation’s finances.

“I can confidently say, as the AU champion for financial institutions and a leader of a country which recently has to deal with one of the most difficult periods in its post-independent history — difficulties which were exacerbated by the reckless behaviour of rating agencies that engaged in procyclical downgrades, shutting Ghana out of the capital market and turning a liquidity crisis into a solvency crisis,” President Akufo-Addo said at the 30th Annual Meeting of the Afreximbank in Accra on Monday, 19 June 2023.

But for Afreximbank, President Nana Akufo-Addo said the situation would have been unbearable.

“Afriexembank, under its countercyclical response mechanism, provided a timely support to help Ghana navigate the macroeconomic management challenges worsened by Russia’s aggression of Ukraine in an orderly manner when suddenly we realised we were alone”.

Ghana was downgraded to junk status by Fitch, Moody’s, and Standard & Poor’s in quick succession last year.

As a result of the ratings, the government was barred from borrowing in the international capital market.

Ghana was forced to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund.

The country is currently on a three-year, $3 billion initiative with the Fund.

IMF released the first tranche of $600 million to Ghana in May, immediately after the executive board authorized the arrangement.