Banking sector was undercapitalised for much of decade preceding 2017 cleanup – Opoku-Afari

The next section therefore broadens the lens beyond the banking system to examine how domestic debt expansion—alongside off-budget obligations and contingent liabilities—shaped Ghana’s overall debt dynamics and amplified crisis transmission”.

The paper highlighted the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) 2024 review of Ghana’s Economic Credit Facility (ECF)-supported programme, the resolution and clean-up costs of the domestic banking system that reached about 7.

Opoku-Afari continued that these weaknesses — persistent fiscal deficits, weak revenue mobilisation, quasi-fiscal operations, and rising sovereign exposure within the banking system — were visible well before the crisis.