Project Financing in Ghana
The Ghanaian project finance market has recorded an interesting mix of projects in the power, energy, maritime, aviation and rail sectors. These projects have involved both private and public actors. In recent times, project financing in Ghana has seen an increased use in alternative credit enhancement facilities due to the non-availability of government guarantees as a result of public debt limitations placed on the government by the International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) as part of an extended credit facility programme being supervised by the IMF. In response, and as a means of reducing the risk to their investments, lenders have resorted to the use of partial risk guarantees obtained from mainly World Bank Group institutions, which invariably affects the cost profile of these projects. With regards to the outlook, recent banking reforms are expected to influence the Ghanaian project finance market as a result of an increment in the capitalisation requirements of banks. In previous years, Ghanaian banks have been limited in their ability to finance large projects because they have not been sufficiently capitalised to lend significantly large sums of money. The increment in the minimum capital and liquidity requirements for banks, however, is expected to provide local banks with the capacity to participate in large project finance transactions.
Read more here