China Eximbank provides $90 million seller's credit to CWE for Upper West Regional Electrification Project

On October 22, 2010, the Government of Ghana and China International Water and Electric Corporation (CWE) signed an $90 million supplier credit agreement for the Upper West Regional Electrification Project. This credit has a 14.5 year year maturity. Its final maturity date is April 30, 2025. The loan’s (principal) amount outstanding was GHS 211,230,000 ($37,719,642) as of December 31, 2020 and GHS 154,600,000 ($29,730,769) as of December 31, 2021. In order to finance its supplier credit agreement with the Government of Ghana, CWE secured an export seller’s credit from China Eximbank. The purpose of this project was to extend electricity to 400 communities in the Upper West Region. It was expected, upon completion, to benefit about 300,000 people across the nine districts within the Upper West Region, creating 30 permanent jobs and 200 temporary jobs to serve as an ingredient needed for the socio-economic development of the beneficiary communities. CWE was the EPC contractor responsible for implementation. It signed an EPC contract on March 8, 2011. Construction began in October 2011, and an official groundbreaking ceremony was held on or around November 18, 2011. This project was eventually completed, but its exact date of completion is unknown.

Additional details

1. This project is also known as the NES — Upper West Regional Electrification Project. The Chinese project title is 上西部省电气化项目. 2. In the database of Chinese loan commitments that SAIS-CARI released in July 2020, it identifies the commitment year as 2012 and the face value of the supplier credit as $130 million. AidData records the commitment year as 2010 because the supplier credit agreement was finalized on October 22, 2010. 3. AidData records the face value of the credit as $90 million because this is the value that was presented to and approved by Ghana’s Parliament. This $90 million figure has been independently corroborated by Ghana’s Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), which is an independent statutory body in Ghana that is mandated to promote transparency and accountability in the management of public revenues. 4. The (principal) amounts outstanding are drawn from the Ghanaian Ministry of Finance’s Annual Public Debt Reports. These amounts are reported in GHS by the Ministry of Finance. AidData has estimated the USD amounts by applying the average GHS-to-USD exchange rate in 2020 (5.6-to-1) and the average GHS-to-USD exchange rate in 2021 (5.2-to-1).

Number of official sources

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Number of total sources

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