Keypoints:
- Ghana and Afreximbank settle a $750m facility dispute dating back to 2022
- Joint statement frames deal as enabling continued development cooperation
- Wider tensions persist over creditor hierarchy and multilateral status
GHANA’S Ministry of Finance and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) say they have settled a long-running dispute over a $750 million financing facility agreed in 2022, closing a chapter that had become increasingly entangled in the country’s fragile exit from sovereign default.
In a joint statement issued in Accra on December 25, 2025, the two parties said they had ‘successfully resolved the issues relating to the $750 million facility agreement executed in 2022’, adding that the outcome ‘enables both parties to continue to partner for Ghana’s development agenda.’
The statement, released by the Ministry of Finance’s Public Relations Unit, did not disclose revised terms or timelines. Instead, it emphasised continuity, noting that the resolution would allow both sides to ‘strengthen their longstanding relationship in support of priority national development programmes.’
A 2022 loan in a post-default world
The facility was signed in 2022, the same year Ghana defaulted on its external debt amid a deep economic shock triggered by Covid-19 disruptions, the war in Ukraine and sharply rising global interest rates.
Since then, Accra has restructured roughly $13bn in international bonds and official bilateral debt. However, outstanding commercial obligations remain unresolved, shaping both investor confidence and creditor trust.
Afreximbank has been central to that debate. Reuters reported earlier this year that during a May 15 investor call, the lender said Ghana and Malawi were fully up to date on their loan repayments, indicating that neither country had accumulated arrears.
That disclosure unsettled other creditors who had already agreed to take losses, raising concerns over repayment priorities and equal treatment.
The multilateral fault line
Afreximbank describes itself as a multilateral financial institution, comparable to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a designation that typically shields lenders from sovereign debt restructurings.
That claim is now contested. Reuters sources say the Paris Club of official bilateral creditors insists that Ghana and Zambia should also restructure debts owed to Afreximbank and the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank, despite their asserted multilateral status.
Ghana has sought to balance those competing pressures. In a separate statement earlier this year, the government said it ‘remains in arrears with all external creditors eligible for restructuring’ and that ‘no creditor has received preferential treatment’.
However, the government also told Bloomberg that it intends to restructure its Afreximbank loans, a position that appears to sit uneasily alongside Afreximbank’s assertion that Ghana is current on repayments. Afreximbank declined further comment, pointing only to a May 21 statement confirming it is not participating in any debt restructuring involving its member countries.
Bond clauses raise the stakes
The resolution comes against the backdrop of Ghana’s new international bonds issued in late 2024, which include clauses preventing commercial creditors from being treated more favourably than bondholders.
If Afreximbank’s loans are classified as commercial debt, Ghana’s continued repayment could potentially breach those covenants. Ghana owes the lender at least $750 million, nearly a quarter of its roughly $4bn commercial debt stock, according to UK-based think tank ODI Global.
‘Zambia, Ghana and Malawi are caught in the middle between different creditors,’ ODI senior research associate Chris Humphrey told Reuters. ‘They’re being forced to make a difficult decision.’
Why Afreximbank matters systemically
With a $42bn balance sheet, Afreximbank has become a critical source of financing for African governments shut out of global capital markets. Its loans often carry higher interest rates than those of traditional multilaterals, reflecting both urgency and risk.
Ghana agreed to pay as much as 9.55 percent interest on parts of a 2022 loan package shortly before default. The bank reported a non-performing loan ratio of 2.44 percent in the first quarter of 2025 on a $27.8bn loan book.
Ratings agency Fitch assigns Afreximbank a ‘BBB’ rating and has warned that a ratio above 6 percent could trigger a downgrade. Moody’s rates the lender ‘Baa1’.
Resolution, not closure
While the joint statement frames the settlement as a clean resolution, its broader significance lies in what remains unresolved.
The agreement removes an immediate bilateral flashpoint, but it does not settle the deeper debate over creditor hierarchy, multilateral status and fairness in Africa’s evolving debt architecture.
For Ghana, the challenge now is preserving credibility with creditors who accepted losses, while navigating relationships with institutions that increasingly act as lenders of last resort across the continent.
