Govt, Afreximbank end three year dispute over $750m loan

The Government and the African Export Import Bank, Afreximbank, have announced the resolution of a three year dispute over a 750 million dollar loan facility.

In a joint statement issued by the Ministry of Finance on December, 25, 2025, the two sides said the matter had been settled to the satisfaction of both parties, paving the way for continued engagement on Ghana’s development agenda.

The dispute

Parliament approved the loan on July, 20, 2022, at a time when Ghana had lost access to international capital markets following a series of credit rating downgrades. The facility was disbursed in August 2022 in three tranches of 187 million dollars, 193 million euros and 332 million dollars. The funds were intended to support the balance of payments and trade finance needs.

When Ghana launched its debt restructuring programme, covering 13 billion dollars in eurobonds and bilateral loans from China, the Government maintained that Afreximbank should be treated as a commercial creditor and take losses.

Afreximbank rejected that position, arguing that its preferred creditor status under its 1993 founding treaty shields it from debt restructuring, in the same way as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

“We do not believe that their debt is senior to any other restructurable debt. The Afrexim debt is part of our restructurable envelope,” the Finance Minister, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, said during the negotiations.

Impact

The disagreement had wider consequences. In June this year, Fitch Ratings lowered Afreximbank’s rating from BBB to BBB minus, citing uncertainty surrounding the bank’s exposure to Ghana and Zambia, where related disputes had emerged.

The Ministry of Finance described the resolution as an important step as Ghana works to rebuild external confidence, and said the relationship with Afreximbank remains strategic.

The statement did not disclose the terms of the agreement or state whether Afreximbank accepted losses on the facility, which the Government had earlier demanded as part of the restructuring process.